Fallen By the Wayside
by DMartinez
Summary: Liz's visions return after a long absence but in a way she's never experienced before. She thought she was ready to follow that path again but the world it leads her to is not one she would have ever chosen.
1. Prologue

Author: DMartinez  
Email: dmarttx  
Disclaimer: The characters portrayed in the following work of fiction belong to the CW/WB/UPN. No infringement was intended.  
Rating: Mature  
Summary: Liz's visions return after a long absence but in a way she's never experienced before. She thought she was ready to follow that path again but the world it leads her to is not one she would have ever chosen.  
Pairing: Liz/John, Liz/Dean  
Warnings: May/December relationship, rough sex, drunken-ill-advised sex, foul language, intense situations  
Note: Finally getting around to posting this here. Not sure why I didn't before.

* * *

Fallen By the Wayside

Wyoming, Fall 2009

No one believed in angels these days. It was too hard. That hope was too hard. Allowing oneself to have that kind of hope was dangerous on most days. Liz Evans stared at the sky. It was the kind of sky that stole hope. The forecast had called for sunshine and Liz had let herself hope to enjoy it. Standing in the middle of the park with the sky looking this way, she'd regretted calling in sick. She would have rather waited tables than have her day off be ruined by what could only be the end of the world if the sky were to be believed.

She'd had a few of those. End of the world days. Some of them had been close. It had been eight months since the last one. That one had ended badly. Her husband had stepped into a vortex and been transported to his home world. He'd written her a letter explaining why he had to leave. He'd left his ring behind and his wife. Left them all behind to pick up the pieces. No more aliens on Earth. Left them behind to hold each other up.

Liz moved a lot. A few weeks here, a few weeks there. The letters always found her. Kyle Valenti asking her to come home. A home that wasn't really a home so much as a place where he could rest his head because he was so tired. Kyle, taking care of what was left of Maria DeLuca. Liz felt horrible about leaving her behind but it was the coward in her. She couldn't stand to see Maria that way. Kyle had been content to start over where they were. He had a knack for knowing where she was going. Left over from the changes that Max Evans had made in them both. They were forever connected by the alien abyss as Maria had once called it.

Lightning caught the pale shadow on her left ring finger. The time since she'd taken it off hadn't been enough to erase its mark. She'd thought about going home to her parents but after all these years, it stung her pride too much. It had been ten years since she had been killed and then resurrected by an alien hybrid. It had been six years since she had hugged her mother and father. She found it difficult to be a 26 year old on the road to her childhood home. So she just kept moving.

Staring up at that apocalyptic sky, she sighed and shivered. It was an unexpected sort of cold that came with the weather. Then as she turned to leave the park, her world began to spin and flash. Her brain seemed to have a short that kept her eyes from responding to her cues. She struggled to stay upright. It felt as if something were in her chest and stealing her air. Something tried to burrow its way in but she shoved it back out. It was so dark. It was so… evil. Kneeling on the ground, she was exhausted. Felt violated, felt empty, felt like she'd just escaped with her life. A voice in the back of her mind told her that she in fact had just barely escaped with not only her life but her soul.

Then her vision began to flicker again. As if she was staring at a light through the blades of a fan. But it didn't appear to spin so much as… beat, like wings. The light brought warmth and… love. Then it was over. For the first time in a long time, she felt like she wasn't alone. Maybe it was just the beginnings of that vile little thing called Hope.

That sky still roiled with darkness. If she listened she could hear it speak. When she closed her eyes, she could see a face. Hear a name. She didn't know what it meant but she did know that she had to get out of this town. Someplace new. Someplace where the sky didn't talk.


	2. Part 1

Part 1

Kansas, Winter 2009

It was another town. Another diner. Liz barely knew where she was and could no longer remember the urgency she'd felt to get here. She had been here longer than other places. She'd tried to leave but she just couldn't. Kyle had chosen not to find her here. Maybe he was tired of looking for her. Liz tried to be happy, hopeful. The world had not ended but it was surely spinning down the toilet at a record pace. The news depressed her. When she came on shift, she always turned it off and put on a movie or a game. The boss hated that. People tipped more when the news was turned off. It was her own social experiment played out over twelve diners inside of a year. No news was good news and the wallets were a little more giving.

She got to know her customers the locals, her regulars the truckers. She liked that. People went about their lives. Wars in Afghanistan, starving people in Africa, natural disasters. People in Kansas just kept on keeping on. It was refreshing. She was getting rather fond of the place. The little place she kept over the library, the little park where she took walks when she felt restless, the crotchety old man she worked for, his crotchety old sister who was a hoot and a half on most nights.

Liz adjusted her uniform in the bathroom mirror. She had always wondered who had picked the style of a waitress uniform and how it had become the gold standard of roadside diners. The day was slow and her locals were out at the fair. She poured coffee for the two regulars and watched a dog sniff its way around the sidewalk. It sniffed a weary traveler for a moment before the guy made his way into the diner. Liz knew the look. Bender after bender, town after town, weeks between showers. She poured a cup of hot black as he found a seat at the counter. He dug in his pockets for change. Liz's heart broke a little. "It's on me. You look like you need it."

"Thanks." He relaxed a little, eyes on the cup as he let it cool a minute before picking it up to sip. She stepped away to tend to her regulars. They flirted with her and she shook her finger at them before sending them back to their trucks.

Miss Carter ambled in and pinched Liz's cheeks then set about refreshing the display case with new pies. The old ones would go in the garbage. Liz rescued one and set a large slice on a plate for her weary traveler. He grunted and almost protested but his stomach growled. She patted his shoulder and shooed Miss Carter away when she looked curious.

Four hours later, it was pitch dark outside and Liz needed to get home. Her weary traveler had yet to move. She sat next to him. She didn't talk for a long time. Just studied him. Thick beard, dirty face, hair greasy under a wool cap. Eyes that were so very lost. "Do you have a place to go?" He shook his head. "Do you have a name?"

"I… don't know."

When his eyes met hers, hers started to tear up. Lost didn't begin to describe those eyes. "You don't, do you." She stared a minute. "I'm not inviting you to my place. I'm wise enough that I don't know you from Adam and you could be a serial killer." His eyes moved away, his shoulders folded inward. "But I can't leave you here. I thought that part of me was dead but you woke it up."

"I don't want any trouble." He whispered, his voice hoarse. "I don't need any help."

"You have a story. I don't sleep. I'll see if Carter will let us crash his breakroom."

Carter was a crotchety old man but there was a raisin-sized muscle called a heart in that barrel of a chest. The stranger was fed warm food and offered a shower with the kitchen equipment. Liz left to sleep in her own bed but she didn't sleep much if ever. When she showed up for work in the morning, the stranger was throwing trash and scraping the extra stove. He could have left any time but he seemed to enjoy the break couch rather than brave the wind outside. At lunch, Liz listened to his story.

"I came to in South Dakota. The woods someplace. I didn't have any clothes. I can't remember anything before waking up with those campers standing over me. They gave me a blanket and handed me over to the cops." His voice was like gravel. He sipped his coffee and picked at a bowl of chili that was too hot to really eat. Liz's eyes were riveted to his face, cleanly shaven, weather-beaten and full of sorrow. "I got no memory, no scars, no identifying information. I… skipped out before they could run prints. I don't know what it was. Something just made me jump ship."

"What are you calling yourself?" She nodded to his shrug. "John Doe do anything for you?" Another shrug. "What do you want to be called? I could call you stranger but after a while, you won't be a stranger." He shrugged. "Okay, Jack."

"Jack?" He lifted hazel eyes to her face, mirth in them. "Jack."

"You didn't pick a name. I did."

"I guess I can live with Jack."

"So Jack. You're a ways from South Dakota. How did you get here?" Liz sipped her own coffee and watched his hands trace the edges of his cup.

"Been hitching here and there. Mostly walking. I steal clothes from laundry mats. Got a jacket from the Goodwill with some money I found in the gutter. I did some odd jobs in Nebraska. Run out of that money already." He sighed, brows knitting together as he recalled his year. "It's hard to get started somewhere. Nowhere feels right. I don't know what skills I have."

"What have you tried?"

"Odd jobs, mostly. Painter, builder. Work is work. I get drunk and I get fired."

"Alcoholic?" Liz took a breath. It was a stereotype but he just shrugged. "Well, Mr. Doe, I can't help you. I would like to but it sounds like you're spending a lot of time dwelling on the unknown. Trust me when I say that it leads nowhere. It's best to live in the present."

"How old are you? 12?"

"Ha ha, old man." She shook her head. "I'm 26."

"What would you know about dwelling on unknown pasts?"

"Because unfortunately, I remember mine. It wasn't easy and it's not kind to my memory." She brushed her hair out of her face. He caught her hand and examined the tan line. His hands were slightly rough. Clean, though he'd been working in the kitchen all morning. She wondered how he'd noticed it. Most people didn't until she pointed it out. "Yeah, I've been married and abandoned. I'm a bitter divorcee and only a quarter of a century old."

Jack released her hand. "How do I start over when what's looking me in the mirror is at least 50?"

Liz took his hands in hers. Big strong hands. Warm and made for working. "I never tell anyone this. I was supposed to go to Harvard, study to be a bigger brainiac than I already was. Then I met my husband. We got in deep. We moved from place to place. Then he left me to find his son and…well, he left. I haven't started to really live again, yet."

"You going to follow your own advice?"

"Maybe someday." She stared at his face. It was grizzled but no scars. As if he had been born yesterday. "If I have to do it, so do you. I've managed to sit here for about four months, which is three longer than normal."

"You are an old soul."

"So, I've been told." She squeezed his hands. "Come on. The afternoon rush will be in… all five of them. I'll take you around to look for a job after that."


	3. Part 2

Part 2

Kansas, Spring 2010

Miss Carter set her pies out and let Liz cut a couple of slices for her break with the stranger. They were a pair. Girl running from her past and a man with no past. The past six months had turned both around. Her grump of a brother had no opinion on it but Miss Carter thought it was sweet. Something had opened in that girl, had turned her into a smiling and helpful person where a bitter ex-wife had been. The homeless man had turned out to be a decent, polite and slightly drunken fellow. Quick wits, good banter and easy company.

Liz sat with her pie and began pouring Tabasco on it. Jack grunted at her. "I like it."

"That's disgusting." Jack dug into his pie, licked cherry goo off his finger, and grimaced when he realized the grease on his fingers hadn't really come off when he'd washed his hands at the shop.

"No, that's disgusting." She reached into her purse for degreaser and sanitizer. She squeezed them out for him in turn. It was a practiced art. Then she started chatting about the journals she'd read the night before. "I just… I've lost my taste for it. It's really sad."

"Then, study something else." He shook his head at her while he dug into his pie once more. "I'm really good with cars. Really old cars."

Her smile was bright and genuinely interested but she was on a tear just now. "Good! You have a calling but what about me? What does the science nerd do when science doesn't do it anymore?"

"I don't know. Keep waiting tables?" She puzzled the shit out of him. She was young and smart but she worked in a diner, took care of him and had the nerve to complain about it.

"You're so much help." She glared at him but polished off her pie. She chewed quietly for a moment, studying his hands. They were cleaner than they were a few minutes ago but she needed to get him a nail brush. She picked up one of his hands to examine the torn nail bed of a finger he'd caught on a bolt at the shop.

"Why do you spend so much time with me?" Jack asked her when the examination of his hand was a little too familiar for comfort. Her hands were warm and small. "I'm older than Moses."

"Because you're nice and you're nice to me." She shook her head at him and let him take his hand back. "How's the new place working out for you?"

"It's a shithole but it's mine." He grinned. They had just broken the seal on the cursing. He wasn't about to give any sailors a run for their money but he let one go every now and again. Mostly to set a boundary with the young woman.

"Good."

"Excuse me." A deep voice spoke from the end of their table. "I'm looking for a girl."

"Any girl in particular?" Liz asked as she turned her head. When she laid eyes on him, her world went white. Whispers filled her brain and her body fell back in tremors.

Jack shoved the man away and tried to get Liz to respond. Her eyelids fluttered rapidly and her body jerked against the seat. When John turned, the man was gone. He couldn't really describe him when asked. It was just a guy, an average guy of average build with average height and hair. Liz was checked over by a paramedic but was fine. John walked her home and when he put a hand on her shoulder at her door, she watched him… _a young man walking a blonde to her door. She smiled at him and waved before disappearing inside. He backed away slowly and grinned to himself._

Liz snapped out of it and stared at him. A vision… of the past. "Your name is John."

"Yes." He chuckled. "John Doe. Remember? But you've chosen to call me Jack."

"No, your name really is John." She tried to recapture it but it wouldn't come. "I'm sorry. I'm tired."

"Get some sleep." He shoved her inside. "It's been an exciting day. Let's hope tomorrow is a boring one."

Liz shut the door after him and puzzled over what she'd seen. Then she frowned. Who was that man in the diner?

The compulsion grew. Liz wasn't sure exactly when it started but she found her fingers itching. Pens, pencils. So she bought a laptop at a pawn shop. Her fingers flew over the keyboard. She wished she could say that it was all fiction but something in her gut told her that it was truth.

She tried to write something else. She tried to make something up but she always came back to the same old story. A man from a small town who left to do bigger and better things. Out to prove that he was better than his family, though he loved them dearly. He returned from war to his lady love and married her. They had two children and then it ended in fire. She didn't know how to tell him but she didn't have all the details. Just bits and pieces missing. Like John's freaking last name.

Liz laughed when Miss Carter came on to one of the regular truckers. The trucker took it in stride and flirted back. It was harmless. Miss Carter had hung up her heels long ago but she was a filthy-mouthed vixen sometimes. She'd even seen John blush a time or two under her attentions. She was a large woman but seemed not to lose her young self and Liz suspected that she had been a beauty in her younger days, so very long ago. One time she got a look inside Mr. Carter's office and could have sworn she'd seen a Miss Kansas winner photo in a frame behind the desk.

"Liz, darling, you need to start dating before you start looking like me." Miss Carter told her.

"Miss Carter…" Liz whined. "I don't think I'm ready yet."

"She'll be fine, Miss Carter. She's young." John waved her off.

Miss Carter was not done yet. "You were married once, little girl. I know you have those urges burning in your loins."

"Miss Carter!" Liz shrieked in horror and embarrassment. Cheeks burning, she lowered her voice. "I… I have urges but I'm not ready to act on them."

"Well, act before that rack starts heading for your knees."

"Miss Carter, I'm going to get your brother if you don't stop." Liz put her hands on her hips.

"Killjoy."

John motioned Liz closer. Liz hugged him and let him comfort her. She didn't realize how much it stung even if it was play. The tan line was gone but Max Evans was still lodged firmly in Liz's past. "Don't listen to that old broad. You'll move on when you're ready."

"You're a sweet old codger." Liz kissed his cheek. "But I promise not to tell."

"Good. I have a reputation." He forced the grin off his face. "Can't have it tarnished."

When she got home, there was a man in her apartment, banging on her laptop. She pulled out her cell phone. He didn't turn but did gesture to the phone in her hand. "Don't do that. How do you get the information out?"

"Who are you?" She pointed at him with her cell phone.

"You wrote. I need it." He sounded as if he had a two-pack a day habit and gargled with gravel after every meal.

"Who are you?" Liz asked again, dropping the hand with the cell phone.

"I am an angel of the Lord." He started shaking the laptop. "You are a prophet and I need your gospel."

"My gospel?"

"The book of John." He turned to her and handed her the laptop. "I need it."

"Who are you?" Liz demanded. The man turned and it was like a lightning flash had appeared for a second. It illuminated the appendages on his back. They were larger than she thought they'd be. The next second she couldn't see them anymore. Her brain tripped and she just started talking. "I can't stop writing about him and I can't tell him who he is, he won't believe me… every time I try, my tongue just… gets tangled."

"His time is not now. When he's ready, he will know."

"Why me?" Liz kept the laptop closed. "Why am I the one who writes this?"

"You were chosen because when Hell was unleashed on Earth, you were able to repel the demons who wanted your soul. You can hear the whispers of angels without your brain… melting." He approached. "You need to give me the gospel."

"Why?"

"Dark times are upon us, human. You've completed your task." He held out his hand.

"Well, it takes a minute. I have to go somewhere and print it." She tried to explain. "I don't have a printer. I had to get the computer from a pawn shop as it was. I hocked my wedding ring for it."

"Get it done."

Then he was gone. Just a blink and there was no longer a strange man standing in her apartment. Liz didn't know what had just happened but it was only her weird life. She trudged down to the body shop and pleaded with John's boss to use his printer. She had to promise free pie for it. She just hoped she could get it printed without John seeing it. Angels. Was it really any stranger than Aliens? Did that mean there was, in fact, a God?

The second it had finished printing, the angel reappeared. He thumbed through the manuscript then tucked it into his trench coat. In the next instant, he was gone. Liz sat there, dumbfounded. She'd seen his shadow. The wings that she didn't see on his person. They were there and enormous. Still, she couldn't quite believe that she'd been drafted by God, to write a gospel about a man's past. John found her sitting there with her laptop. "Liz?"

"I need a drink."

John took her to the bar. Watched her drink, or try to drink. He laughed and finished her whiskey for her and ordered her something sweet and girly. He wasn't going to ask but figured she'd start talking when she'd had enough to drink. It took four of those cranberry amaretto drinks to loosen her tongue. "Do you believe in God?"

"I don't know." John shook his head. That wasn't what he had been expecting but he wasn't sure what he had been expecting. "You look at the news lately? If he's out there, he's taking a nap."

"Do you believe in angels?" She stared into her glass as if it could save her.

John didn't know much these days unless it was cars and guns but he did know that alcohol didn't solve problems, it just made them go away for a time. "Don't they go hand in hand?"

"I don't know." Liz sighed. "I just… I'm having a bit of a spiritual crisis."

"Something happen?"

Liz thought about that. She wanted to tell him who he was but something wouldn't let her. "I think I saw an angel… a real one but he looked like a used car salesman."

"How do you know he was an angel?" John countered as he pulled on his beer.

"I just knew."

"What was the angel like?"

"He was kind of a douche."

"Figures." John laid a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay if you don't believe in God, you know."

"I know but… it's like… either God exists and my whole life has a purpose and a meaning or he doesn't… and my whole life has been… strife without meaning." She met his eyes and her world spun. Another chapter in the life of John. Wings beat and her vision flapped with them. Her fingers began to itch. She needed her laptop and to get the next chapter down. "Don't take this the wrong way, John, but I get this feeling you are more than just some guy with amnesia."

"What makes you think that?"

"I got visions, once upon a time. In relation to my husband. He believed in them. I haven't had them since he left. Before I moved here, something happened to me. I was walking and the sky was just… vile. Every time I looked up at it, I got this feeling in my gut that the world was ending. It was… awful. Then… I can't explain really what happened next. Something tried to crawl inside me but it couldn't. I couldn't see it but I could feel it. It felt… evil. It went away when it couldn't get inside. After that, I heard things. Whispers. Then I saw things about… people." She had a compulsion to tell him but her mouth couldn't form the words. "So, I just know things… about people. Like you."

"What do you know about me?"

"Your name is John. You were married once to the love of your life." It took so much effort to get those words out.

"Oh?" He turned to her, amusement dancing in his eyes. "Where is this wonderful love?"

"Dead." She sighed. "I can't say more than that."

"What can you say?" He gulped suddenly. The look in her eyes was not that of a drunken woman. She was dead serious.

"I think I was sent here to meet you."

"By who?"

"God."

"Girl, stop talking and get drunk." John shrugged her off. He ordered her another drink. She poured it down her throat like there was a fire in her belly. The girl was freaked. Then again, if he suddenly had reason to believe that God was sending angels after him, he'd want to drink a liquor store as well. That was what she had told him. A chill ran down his spine. So he ordered a whisky.

When the bartender cut them off, they made their way through the streets. Down a dark alley, there was a man with a knife. The man grabbed Liz and pressed a knife to her throat. Liz screamed but it was cut off when the knife pressed closer. She willed her powers to return but they failed her. The man pointed the knife at John, demanding his wallet. John grabbed the guy's knife hand and twisted, then he shoved her away and she watched in awe. John efficiently disarmed the man in a flurry of arms and legs. Then John had the knife and the man was running away into the night. Liz spent the rest of the walk under John's arm. His face looked grim.

Drunk and scared, she refused to let him leave her at the door. They both had questions but neither of them had the answers. She hadn't felt that helpless in a long while. They stared at each other in silence, just a foot apart. She wanted to ask but he didn't know and she knew that. He was tempted to ask if she knew but he didn't want to give her hallucinations about angels credence. Her hands would not stop shaking. He tried to comfort her and it worked for a minute but she needed more, closer. Her arms slipped inside his jacket, he stroked her hair. Liz's heart just wouldn't slow down. Her face tilted back, he looked down at her. He'd thought about it before. She gripped his shoulders and stretched upward. It just felt too good and distracted from the memory of that man's hands on her and the glint of the knife. John's attempts to put her off were half-hearted. He stepped backward, but further into the apartment. She had a good grip on him and his arms wrapped tighter around her waist. He had no clue how long it had been but it felt too good to turn down. He knew that he was 50-some odd years old and she was about half that.

Still, a beautiful girl straddling his lap didn't happen every day. Certainly not one determined to disrobe him on her couch. He tasted her mouth, the skin of her neck, between her breasts. Could feel her hands removing his shirt, unbuckling his jeans, stroking his much neglected penis. For a moment, when she stood up to remove the remainder of his clothing, he thought that maybe he would say no and leave but she knelt and took his cock into her mouth and he had no more protests. Even the hand he sent into her hair with the intent to pull her away betrayed him by encouraging her movements. Moonlight caught her eyes when she crawled up his body to straddle him once more. Lip caught between her teeth, she sank down on him. He held her thighs while she rose and fell on top of him. He'd never heard anyone make so much noise when they came. Then he yanked her hips down on his, held her close while his hips jerked into hers.

When she climbed off of him, she slid onto the couch next to him. Her chest heaved, her hand rested on his thigh. Her buzz was wearing off, the adrenaline from the alley was wearing off. The high of sex, still going. Liz got up to pee and get a drink of water. She sat on the bed and waited while John washed up. He crashed on the couch. Liz rolled her eyes and fell backward into oblivion.

Morning came and John had a killer headache and a blanket tossed over his naked body. He pulled his clothes on and found Liz sitting in the kitchenette. Hair wet from her shower and robe pulled tight. Coffee burning in the percolator. He pulled the coffee off the fire and poured them both a cup. She took it with a wan smile, her eyes darting everywhere. He sipped his coffee and took a breath. "Regretting throwing yourself on an old man?"

She smiled, a real one. Something about that smile pulled at something in his gut. He knew what that smile was about. He'd seen it on someone before. Cat that got the canary smile that said she didn't regret a bit of sex. "No. Just never had to do the awkward morning after."

"I don't know anything about awkward mornings after." He shrugged at her and sipped his coffee, standing beside her little table. A table for one.

There, a little sadness in her eyes but the smile was still warm. "Are we still friends?"

"I hope so, seeing as you're the only one I got and I'm supposed to be chosen by God for some higher purpose."

"Did I tell you that?" Liz frowned.

"Something like it." He kissed her forehead and walked away from the table to sip his coffee and look at her small apartment. "You talked a lot of nonsense. You can't hold your alcohol for shit."


	4. Part 3

Part 3

Kansas, Summer 2010

Despite what John had said, they were not okay. Adjusting to a life with no memory was difficult as it was. Liz had been a blessing. She'd made him sit still long enough to take inventory of himself. He had an aversion to hospitals, cops. He somehow had working knowledge of most common firearms. The aversion may have been necessary. That was scary but not something he shared with his young friend. Despite her tales of romping the country with her wayward husband, escaping from some unnamed threat. It just felt too much like giving himself away and that feeling was one he didn't ignore. Playing his cards close to the vest felt natural.

Cars, he knew cars. He had become indispensible to the body shop and its steady stream of people who can't operate their own cars and wanted to road trip across the country despite this deficiency. He'd begun a journal, cataloguing the things he was learning about himself, just in case it triggered more memories. When a half of one appeared, he wrote it down and sometimes in that process the whole memory appeared. Whole. None of them had been whole. He still didn't know his real name but given the choice between Jack and John, he preferred John. It was only the rare occasion that anyone called him Jack anymore. Sometimes, Liz did, just to subtly remind him that he still didn't have a clue who he really was when he stared a sticking point for no reason other than it was.

Liz Evans was most assuredly not John's daughter. She could confirm that. She had her own dad and she knew who he was and where he lived. John liked the girl. She was a blessing. A kind soul when most couldn't give a crap and John could confirm that. He'd been through a dozen towns since coming to in the woods two states over. Not a single soul had been so kind as to give him a free cup of coffee out of the goodness of their hearts, forget a large slice of day old pie and eventually a couch to crash on after a hot shower. Maybe she had only begged off those last two but she'd been instrumental in their occurrence.

She'd helped him get a job, get a place to crash that wasn't Carter's smelly old break couch and took him to get clothes at the Goodwill a town over. She'd fed him a couple of times a week from her little kitchenette. In all that time, she hadn't seemed interested, romantically, but John felt that he'd never been very good at reading those things. Since that line had been crossed, he paid more attention to those things and did some thinking about his memories of her prior to that night. He had a recall that was astounding to himself and really kind of made him mad and frustrated about not remembering anything from before South Dakota.

Liz was a toucher. Always touching him. Small grazes of a finger on his shoulder. A ruffle of his hair in passing. A random hug at lunch in the diner. Kisses to the forehead on spaghetti night. Those were pretty awesome. Nothing from her to indicate that she was physically attracted to him. He was twice her age, he assumed. He would have to admit that he'd thought about it before. The minute he'd felt like a person again in this forsaken town, he'd looked at her and taken inventory and categorized it in his mind that he would not kick her out of bed. She was short, small and the kind of lean that came from sleepless nights, low food budget and walking everywhere from a lack of car.

When forced to think about it, he knew he shouldn't. He'd hugged her back, laid his own kisses on her head while she read to him from science journals and magazines while he tinkered on some object she'd broken and required his hands to fix. He never thought she'd sleep with him. He'd never thought to put the move on. The possibility in his mind was that if it happened, he wasn't going to refuse. He figured that was about what any man would do. So, it had happened after a long night of drinking, which they had never done together before… possibly because he'd never let them do it before. A near-miss with a mugger and a knife. So much alcohol and confusion. The panic of just surviving a bad situation, coupled with the possibility that he could have done much more damage to the guy if only he had known what he was capable of.

Adrenaline made for awesome sex. Half-thought. John scribbled it down in his journal. The sex was fine. It was great. It was the only sex John had in memory… but he was somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 years old. Statistically speaking, he'd probably had several partners that he couldn't remember. Something had pulled in his chest that morning after. Like he had betrayed someone. Bits of the night had come to him. Liz had told him that he'd married his true love and that she was dead. Liz really had no way of knowing one way or another. Surely, if she knew who he was, she would tell him. She seemed like that kind of person.

John didn't let himself drink with her again. She was his best friend and a comfort but he couldn't cross that line again. His mind drew him back to her eyes again and again. The way she looked at him just humbled him. He didn't think anyone could look at him that way. Like he was the answer to the world. Like Superman or something.

Still her face. He doodled a little. Drew the outline of her face, chin and jaw in her hand. Teeth chewing at her bottom lip while she hid a smile. Outlined her eyes, big and brown that… his drawing couldn't do justice to that wetness they held. The emotion she carried in them. His pencil broke when he was halfway done with her hair. It was crude but he could tell who it was. He snapped the journal shut and tossed the pencil away. He was a dirty old man.

Eyes burning, Liz shut them to rest. She'd taken a week off of work to type. It plagued her and it was the life he lived before the fire. She couldn't see anything past the fire. War. He'd been an excellent marksman. He was a good person. He didn't seem to have any faith. It reminded her of Gideon from the book of Judges. She'd been reading up on the gospels. Then she'd gone back to the Old Testament. It was a testament of how people had been wrong to each other since the beginning of time but that at least some were willing to beat back the darkness.

The fire kept drawing her mind but she couldn't write more about it. There was something in that fire that she couldn't see. She reread her text over and over hoping that if she saw the holes, she could plug them. The wife and kids didn't even have names. John's wife. John's oldest. John's baby.

Turning on the search engine, she tried searching for house fires in the '90s. Nothing was coming up that matched John. She was trying so hard. He looked 50ish, maybe a little younger. In the vision, he seemed 30 but… when he was dating his wife, he was… the war. That one didn't fit. He could have been in Desert Storm but the clothes he wore, that his wife had worn. They weren't '90s clothes. They weren't '80s clothes.

Slamming her laptop shut, she stood and walked around the room. She still didn't understand why she'd been tapped to do this. She was convinced now that she had been summoned to this town to meet John and to write this account of his life but what else? To watch over him? To make him stay put? To jump his bones like a needy drunk girl?

She should probably stop avoiding him. She hadn't made him a meal in two weeks. He was probably living off bologna sandwiches. Showering, she got dressed and went to the store for food. She realized she hadn't fed herself all that well since getting caught up in the details of a life lived at war.

At the drugstore, she tried on a pair of readers. They seemed to ease the ache in her eyes. She bumped into a tall fellow carrying an armload of first aid supplies. She took her tampons and readers and gave him her basket. He looked like he felt bad taking it but she insisted. She took inventory as she helped him load the supplies. Then she led him back down the aisle and replaced some of his supplies with actual useful materials. He looked abashed for a minute. She just patted him on the arm and got in line to check out. It was good for her karma. Though, it was possible that her karma was all set. She was writing some biblical text about a guy that had angels looking after him. Still, it didn't hurt to be a good person and do good for others.

On her way down the street, she passed a handsome fellow leaning on his car. The car made her slow down. Shiny and black and all the lines screamed "Drive Me!" The young man grinned and offered her a ride, but not in his car. She raised an eyebrow at him and kept going. She wouldn't even acknowledge his comments with any verbal retort. Don't feed the trolls. Alex Whitman had always told her that. She never really knew what it meant but it was funny. She hadn't thought of Alex in ages. She missed him.

Somehow she finally got home, cooked a decent meal and sighed heavily. She wrapped up half of it and put her jacket back on. It was dark out and she probably shouldn't be out and around by herself. Still, she made her way to the basement apartment he had under the old courthouse. It was a soup kitchen these days and John could probably eat there only he never did. He had a job now and paid rent. He was doing his darnedest to make it on his own.

When he opened the door, he was half in the bottle. Liz sighed and put the food in his hands. He ate slowly and she cleaned the mess he'd made of the place while she'd been holed up in her apartment. Standing over him, she brushed his hair out of his face. He looked all of a lost little boy. Drunk and beard covered in gravy. She handed him a napkin and sighed heavily. She kissed his forehead and then walked home. He really wasn't her responsibility. No one had said that she should take care of him. She had just done it because it was obvious the man needed help. She'd done that. He was functioning as part of society now.

But she wasn't. So she drank a glass of cheap wine and tossed and turned in bed until she couldn't take it anymore. She shoved her hand inside her panties and slid her fingers against her folds, flicked a fingertip against the tight bud when it swelled, she breathed his name over and over again until she came, hips jerking against her hand. It was just a masturbatory fantasy. It didn't mean anything… really, it didn't. He was just the first man she'd had sex with since her husband had left the planet.

Unsatisfied with the situation but satisfied for the moment, Liz rolled onto her side and curled into a ball… still reserving half the bed for a husband who had given up on their happily ever after. In a fit of ornery and childish behavior, she turned until she was smack in the middle of her bed. She didn't share that anymore. Even John had elected for the couch after their night together. Maybe she was just destined to be alone. Destined. Destiny. She hated that fucking word. The used car salesman angel had best not use that word the next time he showed up and she KNEW he would be back.

John sipped his coffee at the counter. He'd walked right past the booth he normally took so that Liz could join him on her break. Deliberate, possibly but more of an unconscious effort to guide things back to the way they were. Liz slid his breakfast in front of him but didn't linger. Well, maybe the point was made. This wasn't something they should do. There were enough wagging tongues in this town. Maybe they had been a little blinder to it before their night together. Maybe other people had seen something they hadn't. Maybe other people were just making it up to make their lives seen a little more exciting. Almost all wagging tongues ate at the diner or knew someone who did. Maybe he was just being paranoid.

So maybe he could risk a little conversation. She cleaned up after the old lady who stopped in to attempt toast every day. The shaky hands inevitably got it all over the counter before she was done. "I had a lot of dirty dishes this morning. Did you stop over?"

"Made too much dinner. I'm used to you eating the leftovers." She shrugged as she swept the bits of toast into her hand with a rag. "Wanted to talk to you but you were three sheets to the wind. I figured I'd leave you to it."

John nodded to his plate of eggs and bacon. "Must have been pretty good. There wasn't any left."

"Good." Liz took the compliment and nodded to the guys who walked in to the booth across the way. "I'll remember that."

When he set his napkin down, it was just centimeters from where her hand rested on the counter. He hadn't meant for that to mean anything but the air had become heavy all of a sudden. He watched her swallow down a lump before she lifted her eyes to his and smiled. It was a wan smile and not the kind he liked to see on her face. Nervous and unsure. He cleared his throat and clasped his hands together over his half-eaten mess. His appetite was gone now. "You think we could… really get over it this time? If we both put our minds to it?"

Liz rounded the counter and leaned on the stool next to his. Her smile was back. The one she'd had at the kitchen table the morning after. It made his crotch tight and that was just the opposite of the arrangement he'd just suggested. "I'd like that. I miss my friend."

"Me too." He kissed her forehead and got up from the counter. "It's spaghetti night."

"Is it?" She smiled and nodded. "Maybe you can help me with my latest dilemma."

"What's that?"

She made a face as she found the words for it. "Thinking about taking my maiden name back."

"That's a heavy discussion. Goes great with spaghetti."

"I'll see you later."

"With spaghetti."

"Yes! With spaghetti! Go to work." Liz shooed him out the door before attending to her booth. Both heads were bent over the menus. She waved at John through the window, who mouthed 'spaghetti' again. She gave him a thumbs up and poised ready to take an order. "What can I get you young men?"

"Coffee times two." Motioned one as he continued to study the menu.

"I'll have the special AND your phone number." The other grinned. She recognized him as the sleaze ball who had offered her a ride the afternoon before. She fixed him with a stare but didn't respond. It was best not to encourage the trolls.

"I apologize for my brother." The other one offered. He was the fellow from the drugstore. "I'll have oatmeal if you have it."

"We have grits." She saw the face he made. "Carter doesn't advertise but he can do poached eggs on wheat toast."

"That'd be great."

"Okay. That's two coffees, poached eggs on toast and the special for the douche." Liz turned and walked away. Carter fussed about making the poached eggs. He'd only agreed to eat the meal itself if a customer ordered it. It wasn't on the menu but it was on his doctor's order. Liz suggested it to finicky customers whenever she could.

She brought the coffee around and chatted for a minute with the taller of the two while the other sulked into his cup. The taller one had been a law student and was facing the same dilemma she was. She loved science but was kind of over it. He suggested looking at her other skill sets. Which is what she'd told John not long ago. It took her a minute to realize she'd ducked her head when she admitted that her 'friend' had suggested she take her own advice on the subject. He'd nodded to his companion. "See, she's taken."

She waved at them when they left. She was pleased with her tip. Liz went to the bathroom and sighed heavily and the white expanse of panty liner. Her period was late. That was just awesome. There was a heavy discussion to go with spaghetti. Guess what, John?! We're having a baby from our ill-advised night of… just awesome fucking. Liz banged her head on the bathroom stall wall.

Back at the drugstore, she found the pregnancy tests. All of them indicated that it was probably just on the side of early for her to take a test. Still, she liked to be prepared. She'd wait a few days. Why couldn't her life be easy? She just wanted to serve coffee and live without complications. She needed Maria but knew that Maria couldn't have helped even if she weren't broken.

On a whim, as she sat in the drugstore bathroom waving the first test in front of her face, she called Jesse. He didn't seem surprised to hear from her. He took it in stride, the way he'd taken Isabel's rapid departure. He had the papers prepared when he prepared his own. "It's been over a year."

"I know. I've been wandering. Staying still for the moment. I don't know if Kyle knows where I am but…"

"I won't volunteer the information."

"I'm in Kansas. Been here for… 10 months total."

"Okay. As soon as we pass the year mark, I'll push the paperwork over to a Kansas lawyer on your behalf…" He breathed on the line for a while. "Do you want your name back?"

"I think so."

"There are… officials who might be able to find you."

"Let them. I haven't had those abilities since he left."

"How do you know?"

"I've had a couple of those high stress situations where those… skills come in handy. They've failed me. I've been lucky to have made friends with more traditional skills."

"Be careful, Liz."

"How are you holding up?" Liz asked as the negative result showed on her test.

"Better than you but I think that's subjective. All I know is that you keep moving, Liz. What are you doing for work?"

"Waitressing." She smiled to herself.

"You're not going back to school?"

"Lost my taste for it. I've got to go. I'm feeding a friend tonight."

"Well, I'm glad you have a friend, Liz. Keep in touch?"

"If I think about it." She hung up the phone. She tossed it and the pregnancy test into the trashcan.


	5. Part 4

Part 4

Kansas, Summer 2010

Readers perched on the end of her nose, Liz read over her work. She'd stopped fighting it. It would come when it would come. Her timeline was easier to see. The angel stopped in periodically to retrieve what she'd printed out. She'd started keeping a printed copy at all times. Eventually had bought her own printer. She hoped heaven had a reimbursement plan. Ink was expensive.

John had been born of a 19 year old mechanic and a 17 year old cheerleader several months after a shotgun wedding. They had raised him and his brother on the salary of a mechanic and a waitress. The boys were headstrong and had both opted to leave home as soon as they turned 18. John's mother had died while he was off at war. His brother had been at the funeral but had never returned home. John had intended to marry his girlfriend on his return from the war but a tragedy had put off the wedding date. John's father had died before the wedding.

John worked as a mechanic for years. He married his girlfriend and after several years, they had their first son just as John had opened a shop with his best friend. He worked hard and smart but occasionally got drunk and was talked into thinking he should have a stronger hand at home. This often ended with John sleeping on his partner's couch while his wife cooled her temper. John would never tell anyone but she could hand him his ass when he was drunk.

The boy grew stronger and followed John wherever he went. Then his wife had become pregnant again. It was a happy time. Then a stranger entered their house in the middle of the night. Liz could never make out who it was but the stranger wasn't a man. He had an aura like evil. He did something to the baby, then killed John's wife and left her for John to find. John was valiant. He saved his helpless son by putting him in the arms of his only slightly older brother to take outside while he tried to save his wife. She had been dead before John returned to the inferno that was the nursery.

Sitting on the back of his old car, John held his boys and vowed that whatever had taken his wife away would be sent to the bowels of the hottest and deepest hell. He spent months sleeping on his best friend's couch. He almost lost his boys a time or two. Well meaning friends could not stand to watch him in this drunken stupor and asking questions that should not be spoken aloud in the light of day.

John took his boys, emptied their savings, took his settlement from the insurance company, packed up the car and headed out on the road. They slept in motels, frequented roadside bars and John battled evil every night.

This was the next chapter and Liz was waiting to see what these evils were. She couldn't make them out. She was staring at her screen when the angel appeared. "They are the things that no one speaks about in the light of day."

"But what are they?"

"Ghosts, spirits, vampires, werewolves, monsters that have survived in story passed from old to young throughout time. They are all real."

"What is your name?" Liz asked, removing her glasses.

"I am the angel Castiel."

"Why did God choose me?"

"I've already told you."

"Because I fought off the evil trying to infect me but… how did I do it?"

"I have not been enlightened. God is here. On Earth. He needs his children to do as you've done. Stave off the evil that walks among men."

Liz nodded to that and laid her hand on her laptop. "When do I know more about him?"

"When it is time. You are honing your craft."

"My craft?"

"Your gift. Listen to the voices."

"How old is John?" She asked softly.

"His soul is older than his body." With that the angel vanished.

Liz sat with her hands on her laptop, readers on her head. Evil. Big E.

She and John were walking through the grocery store when it happened. She turned to hand him the gallon of milk from the refrigerator and he'd just taken it from her hands when she dropped to the ground, convulsing. John had screamed for help and it felt like hours before he heard the sirens. She'd stopped shaking by then. She was breathing but she was not responding.

He sat in the waiting room until they said she was stable. They couldn't let him see her until she said it was okay. He wasn't family, after all. He wasn't even on her emergency forms. The idiot on those didn't have a working phone number. It was the next morning when she came to. John sat in the little chair next to her bed when they had finally let him see her. She shrugged at him. "They're saying I'm epileptic. This never happened to me before I moved here. They want me to take meds… to stop it from happening again."

John talked through the hand covering his mouth. "What do you want?"

"I think I can live normally until the next one. They say the next one could stop my heart." She shrugged. The doctors had said a lot of things. She could never have a seizure again. She could have one every day for the rest of her life. Her labs had come back. She'd asked if she was pregnant. The doctor had shrugged and indicated that her labs hadn't even suggested that. "The meds are pretty scary with side effects. Having another episode like this is terrifying though."

"I don't think you should live alone anymore."

"You offering to marry me? I'm still technically married to someone else." She joked. It was lame. She knew it was lame but John seemed not to be looking at her or listening to her tone.

"No, I…" John took a breath. "You need a roommate, in case this happens again."

"Just because you fucked me once, doesn't make you my keeper." She touched his hand and tried to show that she was joking and that she was, in fact, okay. "I'll be okay. I've got an angel, remember?"

In 1953, a boy was born to John and Angela Winchester. It was a shotgun wedding, followed six months later by the emergence of John Eric Winchester. He didn't play sports with the school though he did with his buddies on the weekends. He helped his dad fix cars out of the little garage he ran on the side of the house. John's uncles were mechanics, his late grandfather was a mechanic. John's little brother was a mechanic.

When he'd enlisted, he'd been assigned to the garage as a grease monkey. When they'd gone through basic, he'd learned to shoot a sniper rifle. He practiced in the off hours from the garage. A general had noticed and sent him to the sniper corp. Uncle Sam needed snipers far more than he needed grease monkeys.

Upon his honorable discharge as a decorated soldier, Corporal John E. Winchester, with a badge as an expert rifleman, a bronze star and a purple heart as well as a Vietnam service medal, he'd found his love. Mary Campbell. Theirs was a forbidden love as her parents didn't approve of the union. That was still unclear. She was astoundingly adept at handing him his ass when he needed it but it was the love there that was astounding.

Love. It was great. It was fulfilling. Not perfect because nothing was. There was compromise and there was fighting. Then there were babies.

John took his boys on the road after the tragedy of Mary. Little boy and baby boy. He raised his baby boy like a little pauper prince. Normal until smart little baby figured it out. Little boy was a good little soldier and helped keep baby boy in the dark as long as he could. He was the last line of defense for the Winchesters. The darkness would never get baby boy because little boy was the best at what they did; at any given age he could perform any task asked of him. He balked once and he swore never again.

Liz hit save and promised to come back to it. She needed to focus on John. She only saw glimpses of his sons and she hoped they were out there somewhere. She hoped that John's life was not one spent in vain. She wanted to write about the boys too but something wouldn't let her. She got flashes of their childhood but nothing beyond a certain age. She wondered if that part came next. Her angel friend hadn't been to visit in a while. The manuscript was growing thicker with the exploits of John Winchester the demon hunter.

She had refrained from looking him up. She didn't want to lie to John when she saw him and he didn't seem that interested in finding out who he had been before whatever had taken his memory. Somehow, it seemed just like John Winchester.

Liz perched on the hood of a neighboring car while John looked over the engine of the car she had just bought for just a couple thousand dollars. He worked hard and he confirmed that it was a piece of crap but she'd survive on it if he worked on it here and there. He griped her out from head to toe for buying the piece of shit without asking him to tag along. The exasperation and irritability were there. Just like they were in her visions of him. He was still him but he didn't remember.

"And what the hell are you smiling at?"

Liz bit her lip and shook her head. She hopped off the car and hugged him. "I'll be back later to pick it up."

"Get back here, young lady. I'm not done with you." He called after her, cursing when she didn't stay for the rest of the reaming.

"Your girlfriend is running all over you, John." Foster called out across the garage.

"She's not my girlfriend." John barked and nearly tripped when he returned to the monstrosity that Liz had purchased. The words rang in his ears. "Your girlfriend is running all over you, John." He'd heard that before. He knew he had. A long time ago. A shorter mane of hair. Thinner face and no gray hair in sight. Dog tags rested against his chest as he laughed at his partner.

When he told Liz, she appeared horrified for a split second but then yelled and screamed her congratulations at him. "So, how much?"

"Not a lot. Just… that I've been a mechanic before. I've dated before and taken some grief for it."

"But that's good! It's a start."

"A drop of water in an ocean."

"It's a start." She insisted and rounded the counter to lay an arm across his shoulders. "Maybe it will start to come easier. Don't push it. You'll remember exactly when you need to."

"You sound very sure about that." He shut his eyes when her head rested on his, her arms draped across his chest. "What if I never remember?"

"You will. I feel it." She ignored Miss Carter's chortles about the way the two of them looked. Miss Carter didn't understand their relationship. "Today, it's a memory of being teased by a coworker about a girl… then it'll be something else and then something else and then you will have you back."

"Do I want it back?" John asked softly so no one else could hear. His hands held her hands for a moment before releasing them and leaning forward on the counter. The alley had scared the crap out of him. The way he had moved. "I think I was in the military. I think I was good at it."

"Military, huh? What are you thinking?" Liz stroked his shoulders as she led him without giving him anything that the angel would make tangled by a heavy tongue. "Army, Navy?"

"Marine." He blurted out.

"Don't you Marines usually get tattoos?" She jibed.

"I don't have any old scars Liz and I don't know how that's possible."

"Don't overthink it." She kissed his forehead and stood. "You're going to be okay Mr. Marine John. I'll be here to help when you aren't."


	6. Part 5

Part 5

Kansas, Fall 2010

John found her in the bar. Tucker had called him. It seemed that little Liz had crawled inside a tequila bottle and couldn't find her way out. She had her head in her hands over her last shot. She had yet to take it. John slid into the booth across the way. "Want to talk about it?"

She shook her head. Then she pulled an envelope from her side of the booth. She dropped on the table as she threw back the shot. John opened it. Divorce proceedings finalized. He read a little. Liz had filed for abandonment and it had been granted. Also included were the stamped copies of change of name papers.

"It's over. I'm just Liz Parker again. Like it never happened." She waved for another shot but knew she had already been cut off.

John stared at her for a long while. He had never believed her story about being married. He took the papers and hauled her up and onto her feet. Dumped her into her car and drove her home. He dropped her onto her bed and found a trashcan to put beside the bed. Only Liz didn't want to sit still. John finally had to hold her, hold her arms down and very nearly had to hogtie her. He set himself up to sit with her all night. Whoever this Evans guy was, John hoped he burned in hell.

Liz stirred her oatmeal while John drank coffee. So, maybe she'd woken up wrapped around one of his legs. There had already been at least one morning more awkward than this one. So, the shame was minimal. John gestured to her with his cup. "Speak, child."

"Okay." Liz took a breath. "We grew up more or less together. He was a year behind at first and then later a year ahead. He's really smart. Um… When we were 16, he knocked me out of the way of a bullet. It was angsty and very high school but we started dating and not dating and seeing other people and then running away together to get married and live life on the run because he managed to get the attention of some… very unforgiving government agencies."

"Sounds like a charmer."

"He was good to me… most of the time. He was a… douche other times. We have a lot of history. He left me to find his child with someone else. Left his ring behind when he did. He gave up on us. He knew that I wouldn't forgive that."

"You loved this guy?"

"Yes, I did."

"So, how long were you married?"

"Almost 7 years." She cleared her throat. "No home. No contact with my family. My friends are… well, some are dead but some might have been better off dead."

"Some deep shit, then."

"Yeah."

"So, now you're divorced."

"Yep." She nodded then tilted her head at him. "That makes you a home wrecker. You slept with a married woman. You're a ho."

"Well, I'm glad your hangover is treating you so well."

"I… might still be drunk."

Liz yawned as she counted out her tips. John was finishing his lunch. "It's spaghetti night."

"What time you get off?"

"Five. Dinner should be ready at six-thirty." Liz pocketed her money and set the rest in the cash register.

"My place or yours?" He lifted his hand. "Weird stuff happens between us at your place."

"You're not wrong." She laughed.

"I'll see you later. You know where the key is."

Miss Carter made a face. Liz frowned at her. "Why do you have that face?"

"Are you seducing the hot new guy?"

"Do what?" Liz backed away from Miss Carter and her knowing face. "Miss Carter? I mean, really."

"I think you have designs on John."

"I don't. We're just friends."

Miss Carter wiped down her end of the counter, taking her eyes off Liz while she did so. "I've been watching and the only men and women who meet once a week for dinner, are dating. He's a handsome enough man but you are young. You can find a man your age."

"John and I aren't dating. We're keeping company."

"That's a fine line. Don't cross it. Not even once. You'll never be able to go back."

John set Liz's keys on the counter. "She's all ready to go."

"Well, what's my bill?"

"Foster let me do it off the books. You make me dinner. This is my gift to you." John started washing up.

"Thanks." She nodded stiffly to her pot. She sipped a glass of wine. Slowly. She had learned her lesson with the tequila.

They had a nice dinner. Chatted a bit about people in town. John cleared his throat at long last. They had to talk. Talk. "People are starting to talk."

Liz bit her lip and took another drink. "We're just friends."

"We're not." He pointed out. They'd tried to forget it had happened but he'd be lying if he said he hadn't thought about her on her knees the way she had been that night. The taste of her skin came to mind more often than he'd like to admit. He didn't feel old. Liz told him that he wasn't but the face in the mirror told the truth. The gray in his beard was not premature. If this was what both of them wanted, it was really no one's business. He was his own man, that he knew of, and she was officially divorced, not that anyone would have known different. Maybe the age difference was pretty big. He was old enough to be her father.

Liz poured herself more wine. The silence stretched out. People were talking. It didn't look good that they had dinner at one or another's home so often. They were friends but there was a needy night spent on her couch. Sometimes, she had to stop herself from reaching out to touch him. Then there was that thing that she hadn't told him about. She knew who he was.

This was it.

John woke, naked and alone. His bed smelled like her. He'd fallen asleep to the rhythm of her hand along his shoulder, his face buried in her hair, his arm hooked under hers. He could not remember if he'd ever fallen asleep like that with anyone.

Sitting up in bed, he ran a hand over his face. He'd started it this time. Stone sober. She'd had a couple of glasses of wine but he could tell that she all her faculties about her. A slow dance to the radio from upstairs while they helped each other out of their clothes. He'd lifted her up, wrapped her around his waist and carried her to bed.

He'd felt too big and wide and lumbering around her before but she didn't seem to mind as he lay atop her. She pressed her hands to his back as he drove himself between her legs. She'd whispered his name over and over again. He had emptied himself but couldn't stop touching her. Sometime after midnight, he gave up the ghost. He wasn't young and he couldn't keep up the lovemaking.

It was quiet. The soup kitchen wasn't open yet. Liz's clothes were gone. Dishes were washed and on the drying rack. They were dry. The bathroom was empty but showed evidence that she had washed up before she left. He pissed and started to leave when something caught his attention. A drop of blood on the rim of the bathtub. A single drop.

"Liz, where'd you go?"

Liz had packed her essentials. Two bags of clothes, the laptop, the manuscript and all the money she had. She couldn't leave yet. She watched from across the street. The little window underneath the soup kitchen was still dark.

Her skin itched where his beard had rubbed. He had left fingerprints on her thighs and shoulders. If she closed her eyes, she could feel the mattress against her breasts and his breath in her ear. Wiping away a tear, she waited for the light to turn on. The day was getting brighter and brighter but she wanted to see him before she left but she couldn't face him.

He'd fucked her brains out and passed out on top of her. She'd watched him sleep for a bit and when he relaxed, she'd risen to wash up a bit. She'd only just made it to the bathroom. As she was flushing, he appeared. The angel seemed to have no response to her being naked. He'd let her know in no uncertain terms that she couldn't pursue whatever she was attempting to pursue with the subject of their masterpiece.

Standing there with her arms crossed over her breasts and a useless hand over her crotch, she felt admonished. Like she'd been caught with her hand in the cookie jar before dinner. Then the seizure happened. When she came to, the angel was gone and it was dead quiet. Liz washed her face free of blood from a nose bleed and whatever else she could in the sink. She picked up her clothes from the floor and watched him sleep for a moment. Then he'd whispered her name. Mary.

Pulling herself together, she put away the leftovers and washed the dishes. She was just waylaying the inevitable. She watched him sleep a moment more and then she was gone. She replaced the spare key in the crack across from the door in the little stone stairwell that led to his basement apartment. She'd gone home and packed then she'd come back here.

Then she saw the dark head of hair appear from the stairwell. He looked around, as if she'd just be sitting on the sidewalk waiting for him to wake up. He buttoned the pea coat they'd found at Goodwill for a steal. He looked very confused. She should probably tell him why she was leaving but she was having a hard enough time leaving. Then he headed toward the diner and she headed the opposite way and out of town. Goodbye, Kansas.


	7. Part 6

Part 6

Georgia, Fall 2010

The store saw business enough during the day. Its real draw was a little later. That's when the truck came in with its limited supply of BBQ. Dinner at the Pop 'N' Squat. Kyle Valenti always got in trouble when he called it that. He really only had the job because he was computer literate and could quickly print a menu based on what was dropped off on a daily basis. That was Kyle's job. Take quick inventory. Type it up with a price list. Print a dozen copies and insert them into the little plastic menu holders on the tables at the back of the store.

Otherwise, Kyle took his shift in the afternoon and sold soda and chips to travelers passing through. The BBQ was pretty good. It was leftover from the lunch truck. He didn't know where that was during the day but at dinner time, it was the main attraction at Morton's Stop 'N' Go. The locals crawled on over to see what was on the table. They stayed or didn't. Kyle got to chat with some people. Got to enlighten fewer.

It was a pulled pork sandwich day. They didn't last long. Kyle was just taking up menus when the bell rang. "We're sold out for the day. Try your luck tomorrow."

"My luck's not been so good."

Kyle turned. He hadn't seen her in over a year, getting closer to two. "Join the club, Mrs. Evans."

"It's Parker, now… again." Liz took a seat at one of the tables. "I'm surprised you're still here."

"You shouldn't be. How's Kansas?"

"Complicated." Liz brushed her hair out of her face. She glanced around. "Anything good left?"

"I was saving a few sandwiches."

"Pulled pork day?" Liz nodded. "How is she?"

"You know." Kyle shrugged. "Do you want one or not?"

"No. They're her favorite."

Kyle sat across from her. "You find what you were looking for?"

"I don't know that I was actually looking for anything." Her eyes fell to her hands. "A purpose found me. A couple of them actually. I've sat still for a little over a year. I'm just a waitress. I… adopted this homeless fellow."

"Pauper to prince and now he wants to marry you and you ran away?" He was only half-joking.

"I was smart about it. I fed him. Showed him how to put himself back on his feet. He didn't stay with me but we found him a place to stay. He doesn't remember anything about himself. We got attached to each other." Her nails were so ragged. She absently wondered if she'd bitten her nails while driving or if they'd already been that way. She couldn't remember if John's back bled. "We hooked up one night. I was drunk and we'd gotten mugged… or almost mugged. We avoided the subject until we couldn't."

"Then you freaked and ran?"

"It's not that simple." She lifted her eyes to him. "Do you believe in angels?"

"There's not much that I don't believe in." Kyle watched her eyes. They weren't in the present. "Liz, what's going on with you?"

"I just don't know what to believe anymore. I mean… aliens were hard enough to wrap my head around. I haven't been able to use my abilities. They… vanished."

"Mine did, too." He nodded to her. "It's why you haven't gotten anymore postcards. I didn't know where to send them without my alien lo-jack."

"I figured you didn't want me running anymore."

"That, too."

"Something happened to me about two weeks after your last post card." Liz took a breath and hoped that the angel would let her talk about it. "I was walking and the sky… looked like vomit. Something that I couldn't see, it attacked me. It tried to crawl inside me. I felt like it was trying to take hold and then it gave up and before I could recover something else… touched me. I started getting these auditory and aural type visions. It's hard to describe. I just knew that I had to leave town. Then I stopped moving like I was waiting for someone and something."

"What were you waiting for?"

"The homeless guy. I helped him get himself together and we were friends and then this dude showed up and I would have a… an episode. Like a seizure but not really and then I get these images and this urgency to write it down." Liz unslung her purse from her shoulder and pulled out the manila envelope that held her manuscript. "So I started writing. Then this guy shows up in my apartment and tells me that he's… 'an angel of the Lord' and that I'm a prophet and I have to take down this gospel."

"Okay. I think we need to get you checked in somewhere."

"I saw his wings." Liz whispered, her tear-filled eyes lifted to his. "I couldn't imagine what I saw. I can't explain the awe I felt when I saw them. I think I'm supposed to write his life down. I'm scared what's going to happen when I finish."

"Whose life again?" Kyle crossed his arms, unnerved by the look in her eyes.

"The homeless guy… my friend."

"Does he know?"

"No. and every time I try to tell him, the words get stuck in my throat and it's awful because I know him. I know who he was. I just learned his name and I can't tell him." Liz bit back a sob. "I really care about this guy, Kyle. I just can't see him every day and not tell him who he is. He should know."

Kyle took the envelope when she slid it over. It was thick, heavy. "Let me close up and I'll have a look at this while you get some rest."

They took Liz's car to his place. It was tidy. Small. Liz took his bed. Kyle sat with the manuscript after he'd dropped dinner at Maria's. He wanted to believe that Liz was nuts and he should commit her the way he had Maria but there was that urgency in her voice. There was that look in her eyes. Sitting on the couch, he read about John Winchester.

He noted how the beginning was much more polished than the end… as if she'd revised and revised it. It was quite a tale. The detail was astounding… especially when he'd used the internet to look a few things up. He'd found the house fire in 1983. Lawrence, Kansas. He'd also found police records and wanted lists for the FBI and Interpol. This person had existed. The dude was nearly 60. That was a little gross since Liz had mentioned she'd slept with the guy once. The picture on the FBI website was a few years old.

It was quite a tale. Kyle didn't sleep. When 6 am rolled around, he got up and showered. She was awake when he got out. She quickly showered and they had a little breakfast before she drove him to the new place Maria was living in. Kyle explained it as being a kind of adult foster care situation. It was better for Maria and the little old lady who owned the house was handling her fine.

The room looked a lot like the room Maria had in Roswell a lifetime and half a country ago. Kyle shrugged and explained that he'd gotten his dad to send her stuff to them. It had calmed her down a lot. Liz watched Maria move around the room. She'd put on some weight. The meds did that, Kyle said, but they kept her calm, if just a bit groggy.

The little old lady was not little or old. Her name was Ms. Ortiz and she was 40ish and kind. Liz chatted with her while they cooked breakfast. The house had been her mother's and it would have been lost when she'd had to start collecting disability for her sudden deafness. She'd been taking classes in sign language but as the disability happened so late in life, it was hard. The settlement had given her some comfort but she wasn't functioning well yet. It seemed perfect since all Maria seemed to want to do was sing and it annoyed the crap out of the other patients in that place she'd been in before. Liz remembered seeing Maria after one of the fights. She couldn't take it. Couldn't take seeing Maria with bruises and scratches all over from the other _residents_ and no one being able to do anything about it except isolate Maria or make her stop singing.

Maria had hugged Liz for a long time when she saw her. Liz had started crying because she'd just abandoned her friend. She helped Maria brush her hair after breakfast. The scar was there, in her hair. Liz ran her fingers over it for a moment but dutifully brushed the hair to cover it. Maria didn't talk at all. She sang when she made any noise.

Kyle waited outside for Liz to join him. "Amy's been here."

"Really?"

"We had to file for disability. It was pretty hard to get it going. We needed school records. Something showing that her capacity had been drastically changed. She wanted to take Maria home but she couldn't deal with her. She got frustrated and yelled. Maria had a fit. I'd never seen her do anything like it. I had to restrain her long enough for an orderly to get a sedative. Amy's trying to find work nearby so that she can visit more often."

The sequence of events were still pretty fuzzy in Liz's mind. So much had happened at once. Maria had been closest to the vortex when it opened. Something from the other side had possessed her body. Michael had to knock her out and Liz was pretty sure that he hadn't planned to leave. He'd gotten caught up in the vortex while trying to save Maria. The head injury had happened as the vortex was closing. Maria had fallen almost twenty feet and taken the brunt on her head. At least, that's the way Liz remembered it when she tried hard.

At the time, Liz's focus had been on Max. On what he wasn't saying, on what he was doing. She'd gotten there late. Too late to help Michael. Too far to keep Max on Earth. Just in time to get help for Maria but not to prevent the damage. Kyle had mused once that he wasn't sure what had caused the damage. The fall or having an invading alien ripped from her mind.

In addition to the scar on her head, there was a scar on her face. It ran across one eye, her cheek bone and across her upper lip. That would have been caused by the sturdy bush she'd crashed through on her way down. She had been told that part. She couldn't remember it to save her life.

Kyle bid goodbye to Ms. Ortiz. Maria was humming and petting a stray cat. She never looked up when they left. Liz was glad that Maria wasn't in a sanitarium. Ms. Ortiz had indicated that Maria was more or less able to help around the house. Putting things away, cleaning with supervision. She wasn't a conversationalist but Ms. Ortiz had trouble reading lips on the best of days. Trying to read Maria's with her upper lip scarred the way it was would be impossible.

Kyle directed Liz to the park. He ran his hands through his hair as he walked away from the car. "I read what you wrote. I looked some stuff up. For the most part, these things happened. Now the monsters and goblins… and this angel business…" He sighed helplessly. He honestly didn't know what to believe about those parts. "What does an angel look like?"

"Like a used car salesman." Liz shrugged.

"Okay. What are you going to do?"

"For now? Crash on your couch while I write the next chapter. I just… the way things were heading. I was basically warned not to let him fall for me."

"How do you know there's more to write?"

"When I don't write or I run out of things to write…. I have those episodes. It's not fun. The last one was pretty bad… for a couple different reasons."


	8. Part 7

Part 7

Georgia, Fall 2010

If this story was true, it was a horrible life to have led. Kyle took care of Liz the best he knew how. Made sure she got a job, made sure she ate and watched the manuscript grow. She always printed two copies when she printed. One set for her envelope and the other just disappeared. Kyle had yet to witness an "episode" but had the feeling he didn't want to.

Liz traded her readers for a stronger grade at the drug store. She bought a pregnancy test while she was there. Sitting in Kyle's bathroom, she pondered what the angel would do. John had been given the option and he had pointed out all the reasons they shouldn't be together and he still pulled her to him for a dance. The kind of sex they'd had was not… the passing kind. It had been passionate giving and taking and if Liz thought about it enough, she could still feel his beard between her thighs, feel his hands on her body, his mouth on her skin. Plenty of fodder for future masturbatory fantasies.

If she rationalized it, they were just two lonely people with nothing to look forward to. She did care about him, a lot. Learning more about his past just made him burrow a little deeper into her soul. She'd be lying if she didn't admit that she felt like she was… creating him by just recording what the visions showed her. Knowing what he had been through, she knew that she shouldn't drag him along just because she was a bitter 27 year old divorcee and it felt good to get laid every now and again.

She lied to herself every now and again to rationalize why she left. One thing was apparent. She was going to go back to Kansas. The test was negative. Her latest vision fest was written out. She returned to the living room and waited. He was there in a moment. He picked up the pages and stared down on her. Different somehow and sad? He spoke for the first time in ages. "Your feelings don't matter. Don't let them matter. He has a destiny to fulfill and it doesn't involve filling your womb with children. He's fathered his children."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Catch him when he falls. The time is near. You will know when it's time to return to him." Then he was gone.

Liz drank. Then drank some more. She wasn't planning to get drunk. She wasn't planning to catch the eye of a good-looking guy… or to fuck his brains out in the backseat of his car. Frantically thrusting her hips down on his, she could feel it curling around the base of her spine. She didn't know so many positions were possible in the backseat of a car but he was hellbent on showing them all to her. She focused on his face, red from lack of blood, and tried to stave it off. This felt too good to ruin. She came and that momentary loss of control sent her spiraling into a seizure and into darkness.

She woke in the hospital. Monitors beeping, IV lines draped everywhere. She could see out the window in the room and into the hallway. It took some time for her vision to sharpen up. She could see Kyle talking to a tall blonde man. They were arguing. It wasn't the guy's fault. She had thrown herself at him. She had encouraged him to fuck her in the backseat of his car.

The guy was actually pretty hot. Liz found a pen in the bedside drawer and threw it at the window. The guy heard the sound before Kyle did. He was at her bedside in an instant. "Holy shitcakes, you're alive."

"It was a seizure. No big." She shrugged and tried to motion for Kyle to leave the room. He ignored her. "We weren't signing up for a registry." The guy nodded. "You're free to go now. I had fun. SO… uh… Thanks for a really… like really, really great time."

"So, you're okay." He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets.

"Totally okay. Sorry my wonky brain chemistry ruined the final act."

"Final? Darlin', we were just getting started." He grinned but stopped when Kyle glared at him. He left and Kyle crossed his arms.

"What?"

"You sleep with total strangers now?" He glared at her when she shrugged. "Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?"

"So, you're celibate." She nodded when he didn't answer. "He was a nice guy. He brought me to the hospital instead of dumping my ass on the side of the road." They stared at each other for a long time. "Get the doctor."

"Why?"

"I'm going to have another episode." Liz whispered as the world went white and the only movement she could detect was a pair of beating wings.

Kyle waited while the doctors worked. They kept trying to pump meds into her body but if he understood what was going on, then she would refuse to take them after she was released. His suspicion was that the seizures gave her the visions and suppressing the seizures would suppress the visions. She had latched onto this responsibility and had dragged it into his court, which was already undermanned and losing.

Liz woke up in the dead of night. She hated this town. It was a stupid town with a stupid name. Roswell. Where did that name come from? She had grown up in a Roswell and how she was hiding in a Roswell. Kyle had a sick fucking sense of humor. Kyle, who was asleep on the chair by the door, claimed he didn't know when he set up shop but that was a really huge coincidence. Her laptop was sitting on the rolling tray. She opened it up and tried to type but the visions were muted. So she wrote what she could but mostly stared at the blinking cursor.

She sat and stared at the screen and wondered why heaven was so dead set against her having sex. John was off limits. The athletic guy in the muscle car was weirded out. It was like she couldn't spit without hitting something attached to a destiny or disaster… of course, in her mind those words defined each other. The Angel appeared out of nowhere, like always.

He stared at her. She stared back. "The medications are stopping the visions." She nodded. "You have to leave." She nodded. "Now." She shook her head. "John needs you. The time is coming soon for him to remember."

"Which is it? Do you want me to stay away from him or do you want me to help him?" She sighed heavily. "John needs a lot of things. His memory. His diet. His drinking patterns. His work patterns. His clothes… and sometimes, his libido. So… what do you want me to do?"

"He needs you to help him through what's to come. You have to leave here. Now."

"Okay. But the doctors won't discharge me until they feel I'm stable. I'll stop taking the medications when I leave. It will take time for the side effects to wear off." She was tired of this. She was really beginning to hate angels.

The man walked over to the window that looked out over the parking lot. "The man you were with... the man you had sex with. He's an agent of the Lord."

Liz grinned. Of all the things that had happened since returning to Roswell, Georgia, that was one of the better events. "Well, he certainly was a gift from God."

"I'm not being glib. He's refusing to follow his path, just like you." Liz sighed and nodded that she was listening. Castiel stared right at her. "He will return to you. He must not meet John before John remembers."

"Why?"

"He is John's eldest son." Then the angel was gone and that feeling Liz had earlier made a return. She was destined to have her life fucked with in all manner of fuckedupness. Gritting her teeth, she shoved the laptop away from herself. Resistance was futile. That's what Max used to quote. "Jesus!" She cringed at the exclamation. That one was Max's too.


	9. Part 8

Part 8

Georgia, Winter 2010

Liz waited until Kyle was out the door before she spit out the capsules and washed them down the drain. She wrote what she could. When Kyle wandered in at lunch, she put her pills in her mouth and stared at the wall until he left, then spit them into the sink and washed them away. She typed furiously until after his shift. She hit save and shut the laptop. Kyle counted her pills. He didn't bother to check the doc file for an update. He forgot to check where her bags were. She'd been loading up, bit by bit.

After she'd promised Kyle she'd get out for a walk, she drove over to Maria's and spent the morning helping with a song catalog. Maria couldn't read the music anymore. Liz couldn't sing to save her life. But she could hum. Maria did a much better job with the final project. Liz hugged her, kissed her head and walked out. She cried all the way out of town. She spent the remainder of her trip bolstering her confidence. She had work to do.

She got a new place. Her old one was rented out, as was to be expected after so long an absence. It was small, it was cheap, but it would do the trick. She got her job back. Ms. Carter had given her that look and Liz actually told the woman to fuck off. She immediately apologized but emphasized that it was her life to live. If only.

She settled in the best she could. Blankets on the floor, laptop glowing in the dark. She typed and typed and typed. She wanted to know more about the mysterious blonde man who'd fucked her into a seizure but all she got were more stories of John on a hunt. Sometimes the blonde man would be there but most of the hunts were solo. It made her smile when he was there because he looked at John the way Liz often did. John was his hero.

In the morning, she washed up. She got on the hunt for a bed. Groceries. Trying to get back into a routine would be easy but making herself believe it would be harder. Part of the routine was to take care of John and she didn't know how he was doing. She just hoped he was still in town. Given Ms. Carter's eyeballing, he was but she had to be sure. She had to settle herself if she was going to help John… do whatever John needed help doing. That fucking angel was more cryptic than any alien she'd ever met.

The next day, she broke into his apartment. It was a mess. Newspapers everywhere and one whole wall was dedicated to a project that most people would have thought was crazy. She knew better because she'd seen his methods in her visions. This was how John worked and it worked well for him. Liz stared at it for a few minutes, then started cleaning everything else. She got the sheets washed, the dishes done, bathroom cleaned. Kitchen was sparkling. Fridge was empty. She bought groceries and made a few simple meals for the fridge. Before she left, she wrote her address on the notepad by the phone. She didn't sign it.

Then she waited. She typed and typed. She found a sad little part of the story to focus on. The first woman John fucked after losing his wife, had been possessed by a demon. The demon tried to kill one of John's sons so that she could steal the other one. John had made her pay and didn't sleep with another woman for a long time. Still, John was a man. He wasn't above paying a hooker to take the edge off. He had his share of quick fucks in bathrooms and alleys with women he'd picked up in bars. He just didn't enjoy it much after Sue Lyle.

Liz came home from work to find that her lock had been picked and that dinner was waiting on the stove. A simple dinner that she knew was from John's repertoire. She picked at it a minute but his absence worried her. She took a shower and when she emerged, he was sitting at her little card table drinking. She drank in that sight for a long time. He had aged since she'd been gone. More gray in the beard, more salt in his hair, the lines deeper in his face. She sat in the chair he'd placed directly next to his. His hand fell on her knee but continued his drinking. His fingers brushed the inside of her knee, making little circles that wandered while he sipped his whiskey. Liz hated that damn angel. She placed her hand over his, trapping it against her thigh and preventing it from sliding any higher. He sniffed and set his glass down but only so he could refill it. "Did I scare you off?"

She shook her head, fingers tracing over his. They were rough and dry. She could smell him. Grease and alcohol and sweaty man. "Do that to myself enough. Don't need anyone to scare me off."

"You came back." His hand slid until his hand cupped the underside of her knee. In a quick motion, he'd pulled her onto his knee. Liz had to use her hands to steady herself on his chest. Her robe nearly fell off but she didn't rush to right it. She shut her eyes against the feel of his beard on her neck and then lower when he nudged her robe aside. The scent of alcohol was stronger this close. It had never been that strong on him before.

Her fingers grasped at his shirt but she had to stop him. The angel had said… dammit, that felt good. "John, please. Stop." He did but only to hold her closer and take her mouth. Liz couldn't help it; she ground her hips hard against his leg. Felt him smile against her mouth. She shoved herself off him, nearly tripped when he tried to hold on her. "John. Stop."

John stared at her. He drank her in where she stood clutching her robe together. She wasn't scared. He could tell that. She wanted him as badly as he wanted her, he could tell THAT. Stepping closer, he pulled his shirt over his head. She shook her head but didn't move otherwise. He reached for his belt. She backed into her bed and sat. He loomed over her. His mouth bruised her mouth, his hands fought the robe off her body. His fingers pressed insistently between her legs and damn if she wasn't just wet and wanting, arching into his hand. Fuck that fucking angel. Liz pulled him down onto her.

This sex was the punishing kind. Rough and hard and just that damn good. Afterward, they lay in bed, both staring up at the ceiling. Enough time had passed that she figured his buzz had faded a bit. He spoke first. "I remembered my name."

"Oh?"

"John Winchester."

"Nice to meet you, John Winchester." She turned her head to his. He was still staring at the ceiling. "So, you're mad I left."

"Why did you leave?" His face turned toward hers. The pain in those depths made her turn her face back to the ceiling.

"We're not supposed to be together, John."

"How do you know that?"

"I do."

"And you let me fuck you anyway?"

"You didn't give me much choice in the matter."

"You didn't protest very hard."

Maybe she hadn't really. It was really, really hot sex. She turned her face to his. "I met someone."

"You run from him too?" His face turned toward the ceiling again.

"No. He was passing through." Her eyes went far away as she remembered his bright smile when he left her hospital room. Light and bright and gorgeous and the oldest son of the man in her bed… his face was starting to fade in her mind. John rolled to look at her. She touched the gray in his beard, the gray on his chest. "You're turning 60, soon." He nodded and didn't argue that he was 50. Maybe he remembered more than just his name. "I want things for myself. I don't know if I'll ever have them but I know if I stay with you, I won't."

"Like what?"

"A family. I want kids."

"Maybe I want kids."

"How do you know that you don't already have them?" Her eyes met his and his eyelids lowered, covering his eyes. "John?"

"I think I do. I get these… concepts in my head and they're hard to shake. I think I had boys. Two of them."

"It's good that you're remembering." She gulped when he grabbed her thigh and tugged her body under his. "John…"

His face was so close and his body so heavy on top of hers. "Why can't it be me?"

"I don't know." She pushed him off and made her way to the bathroom. She stared at her reflection. She was pale. She was tired. So, she washed up and tried to stretch away a cramp. It settled low in her belly, insistent. She finished washing up at the sink while John scooted past her to piss. She found a big shirt and slid it over her body, covering the drying sweat. She was under the covers when he returned and found his shorts. He slid into bed next to her. She let it be. She would explain when the angel reappeared but until then, it was none of his business.

It was a whole week later. Sleeping in John's bed, she woke in the middle of the night. A cramp, a really bad one. She got out of bed to stretch it out. When she returned, her vision started spinning. Castiel stood on the end of the bed but his weight never registered. She stared up at him. He looked sad. His face didn't really give away emotions but sad was what he looked. He glanced at John's sleeping face. She whispered, "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too." Castiel disappeared.

Liz settled next to John and tried to sleep but she was cramping something awful. At some point she must have fallen into a deep sleep. She woke in the hospital. She was getting used to it. She was getting tired of that. She saw John with his head in his hands next to her bed. "Was it another seizure?"

His head popped up and his wide eyes were red. "Liz?"

"Hey." She winced at the dull ache in her belly. The look on his face. "John? What's wrong?"

He wiped a hand over his face. "You, uh… were pregnant."

"I was?" Liz frowned. She'd only been back a week and some days. There was no way. Then she remembered. A few weeks before she'd returned. She'd been in the hospital after a romp in a backseat and a seizure. She'd been on some serious neurological meds for a week. "I was."

John nodded. Then he tilted his head at her. "It wasn't mine." It wasn't a question. She'd been out long enough for him to do the math based on whatever the doctors had told him. She shook her head. "You met someone." She nodded. "You didn't know." That wasn't a question either. Guess he figured he knew her pretty well. Maybe he did. She shook her head again. "The doctor said that you'd be okay… later… to have kids." She nodded to that. He was quiet for a long time. "You shouldn't live alone." She shrugged. They'd had that discussion before. "Move in with me." She shook her head. "Liz, you're goddamned stubborn."

"I know." She lay back and remembered the sad look on Castiel's face the night before. No warning but that. None at all. He should have said something. She barely turned her head when he took her hand. It was sinking in, what had happened. There had been a baby inside her. Barely formed and it had died, somehow. Maybe it was the meds. Maybe it was malformed. Maybe it was Mother Nature. Maybe it was a sacrifice because she'd ignored what the angel had said. She felt her world smashing underneath her feet. She clasped his hand tight, he squeezed back. "Tell me a story, John. Tell me what you remember."


	10. Part 9

Part 9

Kansas, Winter 2010

Liz listened to John talk about himself. He read from a journal that he'd been writing in. He got feelings and he wrote them down and explored them later. He was close to the truth and that amazed her. He waited on her hand and foot for the first few days. He hovered the following few. He kept her company every night. It was sweet. They didn't talk about it and that suited her just fine. After two weeks, she just wanted to forget it.

"I don't remember their mother. It's such an odd thing." John mused as he looked over his notes. "You think I would. I remember there's two of them. I know they have the same mother but… nothing about her."

"Do you remember their names?" Liz asked softly as she drank coffee by the window. It was raining and cold outside. It was one of those moody broody afternoons. She should probably tell him that he'd said his wife's name in his sleep before… more than once. So, he dreamed about her at least.

"No. Not really. I just remember yelling at them for calling each other names." He shrugged as he pulled the sheets off the bed for the laundry. When he stopped talking, she turned her head. He was staring at a dark spot on her side of the bed. It looked as if it had been bleached but refused to budge. He took a deep breath and tossed the sheets aside so he could put the clean sheets on. Liz cleared her throat and John made quick work of the bed. "Jerk, asshat, bitch, douche-nozzle. You know. Teenage shit."

"You look proud." She grinned into her cup.

"How's that?"

"Just now, you were… distracted for a minute but when you talked about the names they called each other. There was this… posture. Proud father posture."

John picked up the sheets and tossed them in the laundry basket. "I think one of them was really smart. I don't think the other one was a moron or anything but… the younger one. He was… really smart."

"I feel a tone."

"I think he was a real big pain the ass." He smiled at her. "Like maybe, we butted heads and enjoyed it."

"What about the other one?" Liz was really curious about him. She didn't want to think about him but she was so damn curious. His face was just a blur of tanned skin and blondish hair.

John had to think about it. He tossed a load of laundry in the beat up old washer he'd fixed up. When he had brought it in, Liz had asked if it had a crank. The face eluded him, the mannerisms were slow and practiced but the wit was quick and funny. "He's a clown."

"Like a real one?"

"Like he's always laughing. Smiling. He's smooth, though. Like honey."

Liz had to look out the window. That was a good way to describe him. Though it was her insides that felt like honey when she thought about how he'd dealt her in the backseat of that car. That part was easy to remember. "Sounds charming."

"He's… a good big brother. Careful. Sure." John frowned to himself as he kicked the washer to get it started.

"You raised him right, then." Liz tossed him a smile.

"I think I put a lot on him. I really don't remember his mother and when I think of the boys, she just isn't there." He snapped his head to her. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm widowed."

Liz finished off her coffee and rose to rinse out her cup. She shut out the lights and turned on a lamp in the far corner before lying out on the bed. John stood with his hands in his pockets at the foot of the bed. She stretched and tapped his knee with her foot. He shrugged a little. Looked like a lost little boy in his full beard. "John?"

"You're staying the night?"

"Looks like." She pointed to the rainy windows. He nodded to himself and turned to sit on the edge of the bed. She rubbed his hip with her foot but he stayed there. Finally, she sat up and slung a leg over his, slipped an arm across his chest and pressed a series of kisses to his throat. She dragged his shirt up but he didn't seem to respond. She ducked her head to kiss his chest. His arm moved slightly, giving her access but he didn't touch her back. "Am I alone in here?"

Her lips touched his. After a moment, he kissed her back. He was gentle. Soft. Gentle. Maddening. She was pleading him to fuck her after a while. He wouldn't. Slow, easy, smooth movements of his hand between her legs, never penetrating but never stopping. She came in a whirl of slowly building ebbs and flows around his hand. Then he was gone. His body off hers and into the bathroom. He returned after a few loud grunts and a flush. He shut off the lamp in the far corner and then sat on the edge of the bed. "You have a filthy mouth."

"You never minded before."

"You scared the shit out of me." John finally admitted. "I woke up and there was blood everywhere."

"I'm fine. Doctor said I was fine." Liz sat up and swung her legs over the other side of the bed. She got up to pee and get her clothes back into place. He sat on the bed, fly still open, and watched her. She stopped at the door. It was still raining. End of the world type of raining. "I'm fine."

"Did you want it?" His voice was low.

"I don't know." She sank into a chair by the kitchen table. "I didn't know."

He reached forward to pull on his shorts from the floor. "You didn't ask the doctor any questions."

"What was there to ask?"

"You didn't ask if anything caused it."

"It was a miscarriage, John. Women have them all the time." She laid a hand over her face. "Most women don't even know it." She stared at him for a long moment. "I run, John. It's what I do. I've done it since I was 16. I run."

"What are you running from?"

"Everything."

John got up and poured some whiskey for them both before pulling on a pair of sweats and a thermal shirt. He found a pair of socks for each of them. Liz let him take off her boots and put on the warm socks. It took a couple of swigs of the bitter alcohol. "I was 16 when I met him. 19 when I married him. It was always one or the other of us running away from the intensity of it. It was just so… consuming. Then we ran away together. We never really held our ground on anything. We just ran, keeping a step ahead of it."

John refilled her glass and sipped his. "I was so young and I didn't realize what it was that we were doing and he really didn't either. When he figured out what was most important to him, he still wasn't thinking about the consequences. He was just running, half a step ahead of it all. When he left, he didn't look back. I was left to pick up the pieces of a life that was so shattered…" She took a deep swallow. "I didn't know how to run without him. I still don't. He was a part of me. Then when I look at Maria and Kyle."

"Who are they?"

"She was my best friend since the playground and he was my first… real boyfriend. We're still friends I guess." She sighed. "When Max left, it was just the three of us. We were all each other had but Maria, she's not Maria anymore."

"What happened to her?"

"She fell, hard. She was lucky to live but the damage." Liz gestured to her head with her glass before she drained it. "Maria used to joke all the time about not being the sharpest fork in the hamper."

"Isn't that knife in the drawer?" he asked.

"It was her sense of humor." Liz smiled bitterly. "Maria used to run with me. Pull me back when I needed it. When I left… left you… um… I went to see them for a while. She's doing better. She's still not herself. She… will never be herself again." He refilled her glass. She sipped slower. A buzz starting to fill her brain. "She was my best friend and I led her into a life where she falls from the sky and becomes… brain damaged. She lives in foster care. Did you know they had foster care for adults? I didn't. She's… okay. I mean. She walks, she feeds herself, goes to the bathroom. She doesn't talk. Ever. She knows me. She knows Kyle. Hopefully, she knows her mom. She knows her foster mom. That is her world. That and the radio. Doesn't talk at all but sings all day long."

John handed her a napkin when the tears didn't seem to have an end. "Was she a talker?"

"God, yes. Sometimes you just wanted to duct tape her mouth shut for just a minute of silence." Liz wiped at her face. "She has a beautiful voice. She looks at the music and she can't read it anymore. She… she's not Maria. Kyle just… He sees her every morning. Brings her dinner when pulled pork is on the menu. He takes care of her and I ran away."

"How long has it been?"

"A while. Couple of years. I can't stand to see her like that. So helpless. I was gone a while, John. I saw her a handful of times. I just couldn't take it. So, I drank myself into a stupor, I fucked a handsome dude in a muscle car, then had a seizure so he had to call an ambulance." She shrugged. "He stayed to make sure I was okay."

"This 'handsome dude'… was he the…?"

"Yeah, he was. So, I mean. I didn't know and even if I had... I don't know. I couldn't handle my… dependent friend. Forget a child and a father whose name I barely knew and whose face has already faded… in part due to the seizure and the meds." Liz took a breath. "The seizure was a big one. The one I had in the car with… the dude. They shoved all kind of hardcore seizure meds down my throat. I took them for a week or so. That's probably what caused it."

"oh."

The word was so small, his eyes fixed on the glass of whiskey in his hand. Liz sniffed and reached over to touch his hand. "What were you thinking, John?" He didn't look at her, directly. His eyes kind of slid over before he took a long drink. "What did you think happened?"

"I was rough with you." He murmured against the rim of his glass. "Too rough."

"Oh." Liz blinked at him, then gripped his hand. "You think you fucked the baby out of me?" He set his jaw and set his glass down. "John, it was a microscopic tadpole and as great big a man as you are. I can assure you, that you were not the cause of the miscarriage."

"How do you know?"

"I'm something of a science nerd. Biology and all that." She held onto his hand. "You're so weird, John. I was thinking something else all night and that's what's been in your head."

"I'm weird."

"Yes, categorically, yes." She leaned over to kiss his mouth.

"What… what does it feel like for you?" He lifted his eyes to hers.

She shrugged. "I didn't have any symptoms. I think I had cramps a few days before, they got bad that night. I just thought I was PMSing. There was no… emotional attachment but there's this… hole. I'm definitely not mother material, the state I'm in these days. There's a sting though. Like… Maybe God took a long look at me and knew that I wasn't ready and just… didn't ask my permission. Took it."

"You believe in God?"

"I see angels, remember." She winked at him.

She hadn't mentioned it in a long time. He'd all but forgotten that she'd said she'd been sent by angels for him. "Do you believe in heaven?"

"I'm not sure. I was raised Jewish but in a strange way. We did Christmas because it's a commercial holiday. My parents owned a restaurant. So, we did a lot of the Christian holidays… but only did the big Jewish ones in the apartment… in a very small way. We weren't hiding, just…"

"Playing it safe?"

"Maybe." She took a breath. "Heaven wasn't ever in the cards. It's not an option for us. No one has opened the gates yet." She informed him when he seemed to get lost in her ramblings. "My grandmother was raised Orthodox but became Secular Reform… or something to that effect. The actual effect on me is one of utter confusion most of the time."

"So you don't believe in heaven?"

"The thing my dad always impressed upon me, Grandma too, was that every action has a reaction. Karma, for example. If you do wrong, wrong will happen to you. Live your life as if this were it. The after is too late a consequence. So, Hell is just as abstract as Heaven. I do know that when you die, your soul has to go someplace. I just… don't know where. Maybe it's purgatory. I don't know that I believe in the Messiah. I don't know that's he's come and all the Christians are right. I don't know that he hasn't. I don't know if he's come and will come again. I just... you can't KNOW something like that. I believe in God. I do. When we die, we get to be with our loved ones. If we're bad, and do things to intentionally hurt others, we don't get that."

"So, you do believe in heaven."

"The construct that I have in my head is… it's complicated. Just because you're with your loved ones again doesn't mean you're in eternal paradise. I mean, you should have seen my childhood Thanksgiving. If the afterlife is like an eternal Thanksgiving. Oh my God."

John laughed and finished his whiskey. Liz liked the smile on his face. Indulgent and easy and entertained. "Do you believe in a greater reward?"

"Yes. I think it's different for everyone." She shucked her jacket and dragged him back to the bed. It was dark as pitch and she felt safe for the moment. "I think there are righteous people put on this earth for a reason. I don't think that I'm one of them but I think, I feel, that there are people out there whose purpose is to protect other people. I think that life isn't easy. I think it feels like a great weight and like… there's no light but I feel that when the time comes for that greater reward, that it will be… not to sound cliché, the goodness and light for eternity."

John wished he could see her face. Even as long as they'd been in the dark, he couldn't see her. "That sounds an awful lot like heaven."

"Maybe it is. I just don't know. Just like I don't know what we're doing, John. I don't. I know we probably shouldn't. I know that it's not hurting anyone. I know that it's not forever."

"How do you know that?"

She could feel his breath on her face. He was so close and his hands where trying their best to hold onto her. Like maybe if he let go, she would disappear. "I feel like you're one of them."

"One of who?"

"One of those people put on Earth to beat back the darkness."

"What makes you think that?"

"You're a good person. A kind person... I can still feel the darkness around you. There is this… love inside you. You guard it. When you talk about your memories, it shows. It's warm and when you smile, it's bright… but it's rare. Whatever's happened to you, John… it's for a reason and I think that the reward is bigger than I could hope to dream about."

When John was dealing with raising his boys on his own, he took a blow. A bad one. He couldn't get home to them at Christmas. He had to get himself to an ER and he spent a week in the hospital, then a couple of weeks in bed with the cute blonde nurse who'd fallen for him hard in that little bit of time. They didn't speak again for 12 years. John had another son. This one was untouched by the darkness and he was bound to keep it that way.

Liz shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose under her readers. "John, you idiot." Taking a breath, she returned her fingers to the keyboard. This was… big.

His little boy had taken himself off on a series of hunts to clear his head from a big breakup and John scooted over to Minnesota to meet the kid he'd helped bring into the world. For once in his dark-shrouded life, there was a little light. This small boy with hope for the world. Baseball games and college funds, learning to drive at age 15 instead of age 10, poker and pool… just for fun and not to hustle grocery money. Birthdays and small things in between. It wasn't the bond that John had with his other boys but it was safer.


	11. Part 10

Part 10

Kansas, Spring 2011

Liz sat on the counter. Miss Carter allowed it. Carter didn't care as long as the rest of the place was clean. It was. It was a slow day. One or the other of them would send her home probably if no one came in for the next hour. Miss Carter had already given up on trying to warn Liz off of John. Liz couldn't really explain it to the older woman. It was probably true that Liz could have a man her own age but the enormity of who John was… and despite what the angel said, John was a flame and Liz just a lowly moth. She knew that she was bound to get burned. She wasn't sure that she hadn't been burned yet. If someone like him could look at her that way... Her middle melted in seconds just thinking about his stare.

Sometimes he would catch her staring. It would be on the tip of her tongue to tell him who he was but… She saw him in her visions, wrote about him in her gospel but that man hadn't touched this man yet. She wanted him to stay that way as long as possible. His joys in life were to watch a football game at the bar, drink a few beers, have a shot of whiskey and see how fast he could talk her into bed. Protesting only got his engine revved faster. And that was the other joy in his life. Working on cars made him tired and filthy and made his joints creak but he hadn't tried to find anything else to do with his new life. He complained about his nosy boss but never about the work. He liked the work.

They hadn't told anyone they were dating, fucking, or whatever, exactly. They just spent their down time with each other and everyone else could take a flying leap. Besides, they weren't hurting anyone at all. If they hurt each other, that was their own fault because they both did know better. Castiel hadn't told her another word about it since the night… well, Liz didn't like to think about it. She and John had dealt with it and moved on. Like it never happened. She preferred it that way.

The day was coming. She was running out of things to write. She felt bad that she knew John so well and couldn't tell him. She did watch him though. Blondes made his head turn. Especially tall thin ones. Ones that looked sturdy. Compact was the word that Liz had decided on. Five foot nine inches, asses like steel, abs on the soft side of flat. He looked away sharply if they had green eyes but those eyes always wandered back over.

She greeted him with a broad smile when he walked in for dinner. It was getting dark out already. Liz called the order back without rising from her perch. John took his seat next to her legs, resting his elbow on her thigh, his fingers dipping below the edge of her uniform's skirt as he sipped his water with his other hand. She was wearing hose because of the chill outside but she felt his fingers rubbing lightly while he examined the dessert menu. Miss Carter dropped his plate in front of him and wandered away. Liz sighed heavily and nearly kicked him when he wedged his elbow between her thighs. He ignored her and stuffed a big piece of meatloaf into his mouth, gravy dribbling down his beard. She picked up a napkin and wiped it off. The bells sounded. She kissed his forehead, took a final swipe with the napkin and followed the newcomers to a booth in the back behind John.

The broad shoulders seemed familiar but she let it go and took their orders. A salad with grilled chicken and a bacon cheeseburger with fries. When she turned to go and tack up the order, the shorter of the two touched her hand. She looked up and met his eyes, there was recognition in his, too. He was the one with the balls to ask about it. "Do I know you?" She shrugged. "I don't forget a face."

"Don't know, dude. My memory can be kind of sketchy these days." She shrugged again and tacked the order up, knocking on the sill to wake up Carter. Miss Carter was watching TV in the break-room and probably half-asleep.

"Liz? Got any of that hot sauce?" John called back to her.

"Sure thing, Jack." She grabbed the almost empty bottle and shook it. There was enough. John would just pour out a little bit and smear a thin layer on everything anyway. She grabbed the napkin to attack his beard once more after passing him the bottle. "Shave this thing."

"You love this thing."

"Handsome with a beard, yes, but you're getting more food in it than in your mouth." She laughed. When the voice called out the orders, she retrieved the plates and set them down in front of her weary travelers. "One grilled chicken Caesar and one heart attack waiting to happen. Can I get you boys anything else?"

"You got um…" The taller one shut his eyes. "I don't know. I'm sorry. I'm tired."

"The words he's looking for are 'his balls.' He dropped his man card about seven hundred miles back." The other one snorted as he took a huge bite out of his burger.

"Mind watching your mouth in front of the lady?" John's voice cut in. Liz glanced back at him but he had never looked up from his plate. The line of his shoulders was relaxed, he was just being chivalrous.

"Dude, you're not my dad. Can it." The guy sat up straight to glance over at the voice but couldn't see him. His buddy made a face at him.

Then the taller guy rushed to smooth things over before they got hairy. "He's sorry. We've been on the road a while. No one but each other for company and we can't stand each other on the best of days. I was looking for… it's a thing that goes on salad but… I'm tired. I can't think."

"A topping?" She frowned.

"Not… bacos or anything like that but um… it's dried." He sighed. "Never mind."

"I've got croutons and some sunflower seeds."

"Soybeans!" He blurted out.

"Dude." The other guy made a face. "You are not my brother. You have got to be adopted."

"I like healthy things. I cannot eat four burgers a day like you."

"I don't have dried soybeans." Liz cut in. "I have those two other things."

"Never mind. But thanks for trying." He gave her an earnest smile and kicked his brother under the table.

"Don't kick me because you're a little bitch." His brother kicked him back.

"Would you stop being such a jerk? We're in public."

Liz walked away and resumed her seat on the counter next to John's plate. He had gravy all over his beard again. John looked up at her, rolled his eyes and jerked his head behind him. "Remind me of my boys."

"Really." She dabbed at his beard.

"Yeah, one always calls the other a jerk, who calls the other a bitch."

"Lovely." She laughed and watched as he sopped up some gravy with his roll. "Want another one?" He nodded. She hopped down and checked on her customers. They waved her off. Liz retrieved the rolls from the warmer where Carter was dozing. She set two on a plate and slid them next to John's plate.

"Hey darling, I didn't know this was a full service diner. Can I get my chin wiped, too?"

Liz tilted her head at the cheesy bastard. "Didn't your mother ever teach you any manners?"

"No, he was raised in a barn." His brother raised his hand in a placating gesture to both her and his brother.

"I was raised by wolves. Get the story straight."

Liz rolled her eyes and began pulling out the coffee carafe and some cups. She poured John's first. He kissed her hand, the back, then the palm for just the briefest of moments. She cupped his chin for a moment, scratching under his chin before moving on. Then she offered a cup to each of her other two customers. Both nodded and handed over their empty plates and gave orders for pie. Liz cut the slices a little wide. The pie was due for the trash if it didn't get eaten. She dropped one off with John before sliding the little plates onto the table. "You boys just let me know when you're ready to settle up."

The rude one nodded as he tucked into his pie. Something about the way he took a breath and groaned when he tasted the pie struck a chord. He caught her staring. "It's because I'm handsome right?"

She shook her head and turned to lay a hand on John's shoulder. That groan was… familiar. She listened to the brothers argue with each other. John tapped his plate for a second, glancing back at her while he chewed. She knew what that meant. They met eyes and nodded. Liz got him another slice. It was a pretty good pie. Liz looked at the sad piece left and brought it around to the table. "Got room for more? This slice is on the house, IF you can behave yourself."

"Darling, I could eat your pie all night." Such enthusiasm.

It wasn't meant to be dirty. His eyes were on the pie. He took it from her and dug in. His fingers brushed hers and it clicked. She did know this guy. She all but dropped the tin like it had burned her but he'd already taken hold of it. Another one of those groans sent a shiver up her spine. She took a step back, a hand on her stomach while she fought to control her emotions.

"Hey, you okay?" The taller one had watched the blood drain out of her face.

"Liz? You okay?" John turned slightly but all he could see was her back. "You feel a seizure coming on?"

He looked up, his mouth full of pie. Eyes hooded and looking just like the cat that got the canary. He ran his tongue over his teeth as he looked at her. "That's it! You look just like this girl I fucked into a fucking seizure. Did I tell you about that, Sammy?"

"Listen, punk!" John was turning and Liz couldn't stop any of it.

John was on his feet and facing the table. The look on the tall guy's face got the other one's attention and Liz was standing there, staring at him, her hands on her stomach because she didn't know what else to do with them. She wanted to cover her face but then she might miss something. It was the train wreck waiting to happen and impossible to tear her eyes from.

Liz watched Dean's face as he recognized his father underneath the thick beard and pea coat. She figured on shock but not on the knives that were whipped out of pockets. Hands reached for her, as everyone wanted her out of the way for the same reason. John was quickest but furthest. His arm slipped around her waist and he yanked her backward, brandishing his butter knife against the two young guys. He spun Liz away. Liz screamed and covered her head. Then the wings swept over everything. Dead silence. Liz looked up to see Castiel standing in the middle of it all. The three men were frozen in place. Dean's knife about to enter John's ribcage. John's butter knife about to slice across Dean's face, his other fist inches from Sam's face, who had a knife at John's knee.

"This is why I told you to make sure they didn't meet."

"Like I knew they would just walk into the diner." Liz exclaimed just before she blacked out.

When Liz came to, she was at home and puking on her kitchen floor. John was slumped on the floor. He came to a moment later, swinging both arms as if he'd been in the middle of the diner about to stab a fellow and punch another. He jumped to his feet and looked her over. "What happened? How did we get here?"

She watched him fall to his knees and puke on her rug. She sat on her bed and put her face in her hands. "I'm so sorry." For once the words didn't stick in her throat. "They know who you are."

"Those men in the diner." He demanded, his voice low and mean. She nodded. "Who are they?"

Liz covered her mouth while she stared up at him. He gripped her hands, pulled them away from her face. All the questions were in his eyes. Who were they? How do they know me? How do you know who they are? Do you know who I am? "You are John Eric Winchester. You were born in Lawrence, Kansas. You married Mary Campbell when you got home from Vietnam. You had two sons with her. When the baby was six months old, something killed her. You swore you would hunt it down until your last breath. You didn't but your oldest son did."

"What?!" John roared at her. "You knew all that and you didn't tell me?"

"I tried but the words wouldn't come out. Literally." She pleaded with him. "Those men in the diner, they're your sons."

That threw him for a loop. He backed away from her and wiped a hand over his face. "My sons."

"They think you're dead." She stood from the bed and stepped toward him.

"Why would they think that?"

"You… a few years ago, Dean was injured. He's your oldest son. He… wasn't going to make it. You traded your life for his."

"You can't do that. I can't just decide to die for someone else."

"When you know who to talk to about the deal, you can." Liz stepped toward him again but he was already turning and covering his head with his hands. "And you did. That's what you do. You know about the things that people shouldn't know about. You fight the things that people have nightmares about."

"You couldn't tell me before they walked in?"

"I didn't know. I…" She took a breath. She almost told him but that was something she'd keep to herself. "It's complicated. I don't see them in my visions. I see you."

"Do you know how crazy you sound?"

"But you believe me?"

John stared at her for a long moment and nodded. "I… was remembering more. Things felt off. Like I was living this life but it wasn't… like I was slacking off." It felt true. Like when Liz had started calling him John because that was what his name was and not because he was a John Doe. He knew the difference but not what it was. "Why can you tell me now?"

"Because the cat is already out of the bag. I was supposed to stop you from seeing them and them from seeing you until you remembered but I didn't think they'd just walk into the diner. I didn't even know what your boys looked like as adults."

"Tall order, huh." John breathed and turned over everything that she said. "They tried to kill me because I'm supposed to be dead already."

"Yeah." She touched his hands, he flinched. She let her hands fall. "Are we okay?"

"I don't know." He looked down to the puddle on the ground. "How did we get here?"

Liz went back to work in street clothes after she washed the smell of vomit off her body and the taste out of her mouth. Carter and Miss Carter had missed the whole thing. The table was a mess but the Winchester boys were gone. She cleaned up and let the Carters know she was leaving. She stopped by John's place to get him some clothes and to grab the whiskey bottle. She kept her eye out but didn't see them. She was halfway there when she saw Castiel in an alley. She veered sharply into the alley and found them all. Castiel and the Winchester men in the alley. She got out of the car without thinking.

Two guns were fixed on her head. She lifted her hands, scared out of her mind. Two pairs of hazel eyes fixed a stare on her. The older strode to her, gun unwavering. "And just who the fuck are you?"

"Liz Parker." She awkwardly held her hand out. He just stared at it. She looked to the angel. "Castiel… what the hell? No warning?"

"I gave you orders. My Father made it so you could refuse to follow them. That is not my fault." The angel barely turned his head to her.

"So, what now?" She demanded.

"How do we know that you're really a prophet?" Dean demanded, his gun getting dangerously close to her head.

"How do I know you're really his son?" Liz's nostrils flared.

"What's my middle name?"

"How the hell should I know?" Liz bit out. "I'm not writing the gospel of… what's your name again?"

"Seriously?" Dean threw up his hands and walked away from her.

"How do we really know that it's our dad?" Sam pressed, gun holstered for the moment.

"I raised him from perdition, just as I did you." Castiel pointed to Dean.

"We helped him escape Hell. He wasn't in hell." Dean growled and whirled around.

Liz stepped back when Dean whirled on the angel. She knew how he felt. Castiel was an infuriating being. "He wasn't in heaven either." She waved at them. "Come on, guys. Give me something. John is freaking out and he's pissed at me."

"I need a drink." Dean grabbed Liz's arm and guided her to her car. "And a story. Castiel's not talking. I need you to fill in the blanks."

The bar was nearly empty. It was Tuesday night after all. He pounded whiskey while she tried to talk to him. "John woke up naked in a field or the woods or someplace. He… doesn't remember anything and I do mean anything. He'd been wandering around as a John Doe. Just looking for anything to put himself to rights."

"So, what? You took him in?" Dean raised an eyebrow. "Just out of the goodness of your heart."

"Kind of." She nodded. "He… looked so lost. I fed him, warmed him up, found him a place to crash. I was the first person who gave him a chance. He didn't make that easy. So we got him some clothes, a job and a place to call his own. He couldn't remember anything for a long time. We were calling him Jack for a while just to call him something." She stared at him. He looked so different from John but the intensity was so familiar. "I was given a task and I didn't agree with it but Castiel didn't give me much option."

"What's that?" He tipped his glass back to catch the last few drops of whiskey.

"Write his story down but don't tell him."

"How are you going to do that if he's using a clean slate?"

"Visions."

Dean nodded to himself. Sounded like what he knew of prophets. "If he didn't remember anything, why'd he come at me with a silver knife?"

Liz took a breath. "He'd started getting memories, little ones. He saved me from a mugger one night. Pretty efficiently. He'd figured military. Then he'd get these feelings of déjà vu. Conversations he'd had in another lifetime. The knife just happened to be silver. He was mostly ticked at your mouth for talking that way in front of me." She lifted her hands to him to placate and move on. "Today, when you and your brother came into the diner, the bickering started to do something to him. He had this feeling before that he might have kids. Today, he said he could remember feeling annoyed by the bickering from the backseat."

"If he thought he had kids, why didn't he come looking?"

"Cause's almost 60 and no one came looking for him. No bulletins, and he was actually kind of afraid of an APB. John reads papers religiously. He looked for people that were looking for him… He figured that maybe he didn't have anything to do with his kids."

"Maybe. Maybe I believe that. Why didn't you tell him?"

"Every time I opened my mouth to say the words, they would get stuck. It was the one order he gave me that I had to obey." She rubbed her throat, remembering the feeling of stuck words.

"What other orders did you have?"

Liz dropped her eyes to her hands. "Don't tell him. Don't let him meet his children before he remembers… and don't fall in love with him."

She looked up to find his eyes on her, more green than just hazel. Eyebrow ticked into his hairline. He held his hand up and motioned for a refill with the other. He kept his hand to her as he waited for all four of his glasses to be refilled. When he'd tossed one of them back, he cleared his throat. "You fell in love with my dad."

"It was hard not to. I wrote down everything he ever did. I saw it through the rose colored glasses that an angel gave me. It's hard not to find the cause and devote yourself to it. I see him every day and he has no clue the hero he was." She saw him relax. He thought his dad was a hero. "He loved your family so fiercely. So proud. Even now. He can't remember you but when he gets those feelings. His whole body language changes. He's so proud."

The green eyes looked away, he ran a hand against his eyebrows. "So, it just so happens that a prophet was dropped in the same town he washed up in?"

"I was chosen."

"Why?"

"Now that I know what you all do… I think I was attacked by a demon that wanted to possess me. It couldn't. That got the angels' attention. I was sent here… to meet him."

"How long ago?"

"It's been a good while. A year and change?"

"And you just happened to be in a bar in another state." He gestured to himself. "It was you. I know it was you." She nodded. "That was a coincidence?" She nodded again. Took one of his glasses and emptied it. "You didn't know who I was?"

"No. I don't see you in the visions. I know who you are. The only time I saw you and remembered your face was when you were young. Really young." She breathed out and tapped the glass for a refill when the waitress walked past. "The night you left, Castiel came to me and told me who you were. After they let me go and I could slip away from that bulldog you met at the hospital, I came back here. The seizures sometimes make my memory fuzzy."

"That's why you kept looking at me and protesting that you knew me."

"I didn't think I did." She admitted.

"I don't think I've ever fucked a girl that was also fucking my dad." He stared at her. "You are… right." She didn't answer at first. "I saw the way he was touching you when we were at the diner."

"Yeah." She nodded. "We fuck."

"Take me to him."

"He's not the dad you remember, right now." Liz warned, she waited until her glass was refilled and the waitress walked off. "His memories, the ones he has. They're the good ones. He doesn't remember the drunk spells or the… hard times."

"When I think of my dad. All I remember are the good times. Sammy's the one who harps on the hard times."


	12. Part 11

Part 11

Kansas, Spring 2011

John had his head between his hands at the little table in the kitchenette. He reached out with a hand to take the bottle from Liz without looking. He unscrewed the top and poured it directly down his throat. When he chanced a look at her, he noticed they had company.

"What are you going to do now that you found me?" Eyebrow cocked and sipped his whiskey from the bottle and waited for him to speak. "You're the older one?"

"Yeah. Dean." Dean held out his hand. It was weird. Shaking his dad's hand like they were strangers. "Sorry about earlier. We gave you a funeral pyre and I saw you for a bit in the afterlife. I was pretty sure you'd gone through to the light."

John took another long pull on the bottle. "So… no clue why I'm walking around?"

"Not a one."

John eyed the young man from head to toe. "You're 25?"

"31."

"Must take after your mother."

"Come on, John. You thought you were 50 when you woke up." Liz tried to lighten the mood. "Some pretty good genes."

Dean's face screwed up in disgust and turned away from them to regain his composure. He cleared his throat. "You used to say that I looked just like her."

"Where is she?" John set the bottle down. "Your mother… my wife?"

"She died when I four." Dean's jaw set and he held his hand out for the bottle. He took a long pull and handed it back. "Sammy was six months. She was… our world. She's the reason we do what we do."

"Hunt demons." John ran a hand over his lips. "Demon killed her, huh." He rubbed his hands together. "I hear the words but it's like I don't know what they mean."

"I was raised in that world." Dean took a seat to look at his dad. Like he had died yesterday. "You raised me in it… because of what happened to her."

"What happened?"

"John." Liz tried to stop him. He waved her off. Liz took a breath and retreated to her bed to listen to them talk.

"Sammy had his very happy half-birthday. You worked late. Mom and I were putting him to bed when you came in. We did it every night. All of us. We put him to bed, gave him his kisses and turned off the lights. You tucked me in. Mom kissed me good night. Everyone went to bed." Dean's voice wavered a bit but he kept talking. "You woke up because you heard a noise. A scream. You'd fallen asleep downstairs and ran up to check. Everything was quiet. You checked on me. Checked on Sammy. He was fussy. Then blood dripped from the ceiling. You looked up and Mom was on the ceiling. She burst into flames. You picked up Sammy and I was in the hallway. You gave him to me and told me to run outside. You tried to save her but the place went up. Half the house burned. You and me and Sammy. We've been our entire family ever since."

"Liz said that you killed it. The thing that did that to… Mary."

"I did, Dad. I did. You taught me everything I needed. You even helped from beyond the grave."

"I did?"

"Yeah." Dean cleared his throat. "It's a lot. It sucks that we have to tell you at all. I mean… if I could go back and live and not know what it is that I do…" He sniffed and drank some more. "You got a job, a girl half your age to screw, and a roof over your head. It's paradise."

"Except that every morning when I wake up, it's like I forgot to do something. I check the locks. I check the windows. I read the papers but I don't know what I'm looking for. I know that there's something that I don't know."

"Dad, you were great at this. You… You were almost 60 when you died and there are hunters that haven't lived as long as me."

"I was a Marine?"

"Lance Corporal, Sniper Corp." The pride in that voice, Liz looked up to see them. John's elbows were on the table, his hands loose and crossed near his chest. Dean's elbows rested on his own thighs, hands clasped together between his knees. Father and son. Then she watched as Dean did the thing that had broken John's heart and bolstered it at the same time all those years ago. He shifted forward and laid his hand on John's shoulders. "It's okay, Dad. It's okay."

Then Liz saw John break for the first time. Really break. He pulled Dean close and held him tight. The expression on Dean's face made Liz look away. Wide open and desperate NEED. Liz remembered things from John's point of view. He had no idea the hero worship his oldest son had for him. She wondered at Dean's open devotion. It was easy to see but he'd been there the whole time. He'd lived the life with John leading him through the dark.

This was a difficult situation and Dean seemed to have taken it in stride. When Dean released John, John stood and walked to the window as he wiped his eyes. Dean's eyes found Liz's for a second then fixed on his father. Liz stared at Dean. She'd met him before, fucked him but he hadn't made much of an impression aside from being a very pretty, very athletic horn dog. This was different. She watched him watch his dad. Watched him yearning for something. Completely serious and "on the job" and it was completely and utterly sexy.

She thought of his face in the car that night. So focused but carefree. This was not that. She tripped over her own feet when he called her over. The intensity reminded her of John when he was focused. It made a pool in her panties and her throat run dry. Dean tilted his head at her. "Could you give us a minute?"

"It's my house." Liz felt her thighs clench. "But… um… John pretty much lives here anyway."

"I need a minute with him. Without prying eyes."

"John?" Liz called softly.

"Yeah." He cleared his throat. "Take a walk. I… got… um… some cash. Get us some dinner." He turned and patted his chest for his wallet. "Where's the other one?"

"I think we'll leave him out of this for now." Dean watched their exchange with puzzlement. "Sammy can take care of himself."

Liz sat on a bench in the park. She'd called in an order and she'd get it eventually but her head was spinning. It was happening so fast and so intense. She had lost John. She was sure of it. He could barely look at her. His fingers skittered from hers when he'd handed over the money. It started to make her angry. She knew it would upset him that she had known who he was. She had tried to tell him but the words wouldn't come. She couldn't tell him. She had wanted to… she supposed. She had tried to tell him… in the beginning, at least.

Castiel appeared beside her. She stared up at him. He stared back. "Dean has a complicated relationship with his father. As do I with mine."

"Yeah. I get that." Liz nodded to herself. "What's next? He knows. They know."

"He still doesn't remember." Castiel looked away. "Still, it's time for you to do more than write his past."

"More?" She started to stand but he laid a hand on her forehead and she fell to the ground. The dark swallowed her whole.

_The ground opened up. The boy climbed out. He looked pissed. He scanned the area around him then started walking. He had one goal in mind. Find the Winchesters._

The monitor beeped steadily. Liz was very used to that sound. It meant she was found unconscious on the street and had been transported to the hospital. She felt urgency but couldn't move. Her head was so groggy. Every time she turned her head, it was a big effort. She could still feel them. There were three of them. Castiel was her angel. He came to her and spoke because the others did not possess human bodies. The human body was essential so that Liz's brain didn't leak out her ears when they spoke to her. She knew this now. The other two had opposing views on how Liz should be used. That's what caused her seizures. They were yelling opposing things in her ears. They were still doing so but…

Her breathing picked up and her heart monitor began beeping furiously. Liz could feel the tears rolling down her face. She felt John's hand in hers. She knew it was him because she was inside of herself and outside of herself. She could see herself sobbing, could see John shouting for help. Could see Dean running down the hallway to grab a doctor while the nurses were leaping from their desks because their monitors were going batshit.

"Stop it. Stop it. Just stop it." Liz whispered. They were having a battle in the room and she was the only one who could see it, who was affected by it. "He's risen. Just stop it."

Then they stopped and looked at her. They were terrible. She was overwhelmed by their presence. She had thought seeing Castiel's wings for a moment had changed her world. She likened seeing his wings to seeing ants on the ground in comparison to the great presence of these angels. Liz felt relieved when they left. She could feel John's hand in hers. She could make out Dean's face at the foot of her bed. She focused on him when the doctors began pushing everyone away from her. Dean, whose face was not one of pity but one of vengeance. He looked the way she had always imagined the cherubim would look. That was her last thought as she lost consciousness once again.

Liz immediately went to the bathroom and puked up as much of the meds as she could. It could not undo the two days spent in the hospital but it would get the new ones out. John frowned in the doorway. She was moving in with him. They had all decided it. The boys were drawing on the walls and windows. John stared at her. He handed her the bag of meds. She began flushing them. "I'll be fine."

He had that look on his face. It told her that he wanted her to keep taking meds, even if it meant she didn't see whatever it was that she saw. "You didn't see you."

"Yes, I did." She rinsed her mouth out with his mouthwash and used his toothbrush to smear toothpaste around her mouth.

He ran his tongue around his mouth as he searched for the words. He'd just get a new toothbrush, one for each of them. "What happened, exactly? I get this feeling that you knew what was happening and the docs ain't clued in."

Liz took a breath and ran the shower behind her. John stepped inside the bathroom and shut the door behind him. She undressed and stepped into the hot water. She had to get clean first. She was so tired and shaky, she let John help to wash her back and hair. He wrapped her in a towel afterward and left the room to get some clothes, his until they could go get hers. He could hear the boys talking.

"You see this wall. It's like he never stopped."

"It's all out of order." Dean declared. "Dad doesn't track like this. He was cutting the articles because they caught his attention but look… and this… and that…"

"Holy shit, you're right. And that one… it's a hoax."

John returned with his thermals and a big, thick, shirt. He helped her walk out to the bed. They were all waiting. Even Castiel. Liz sighed and started. "So, all you angel bastards are gigantic douches." Sam and Dean grunted their acknowledgement. Castiel just cast his stare to the ground. "It seems that there's an agreement on certain things… like who rises from the dead to return to the fight but there is disagreement as to how those... people should be utilized."

Sam and Dean looked to Castiel, who didn't say anything. John didn't understand what they were talking about. He'd be damned if they talked about him like he wasn't there. "Explain it to me like I'm stupid, please."

Liz ignored the snorts from the boys at John's comment. It was something he'd said to them before. "There are two factions of angels. They all want the control to make their own vision come true. They all agreed that Dean should be raised. They all agreed that you should be raised." Liz took a breath and looked right at Dean. "No one but a few wanted Adam raised the first time... He's been raised again."

Dean paled. Sam looked to his brother and then to his father, but John had no recollection of his first two children, let alone his third illegitimate child. Dean cleared his throat. "Adam's back?"

"Yes. In the hospital when I had my big episode… The angels in the room wanted me to do something but I don't know what it was. When I told them he had been raised, they left." She stared at Dean hard. "I don't know what was in the hole in the ground that he crawled out of but… it scared one of the angels badly."

"Who is Adam?" John cut in.

Dean set his jaw and cut his eyes to his father. "I'm not really sure. The only one who did was you. You don't remember him…"

"Dean. Tell him." Liz bit out.

"You tell him. You probably know more about it than I do." Dean barked at Liz. She opened her mouth to protest that she actually knew very little but movement caught her eyes.

Sam cleared his throat and motioned his dad over. He tried a couple of times but he couldn't get the words out. It was really hard enough dealing with his amnesiac father, but also that his amnesiac father had a relationship with a young prophet and to tell them both that his father had another son out there… apparently since he'd been raised from the grave, twice. "Dad…"

"Hold on." John barked. "Somebody tell me what the fuck is going."

Dean seemed to relax a bit. It was Dean's job to do the hard things. "Seems that you… hooked up with some nurse back in '89 or '90. Knocked her up. You found out when the kid was 12. A boy. Adam was his name. He was… killed by ghouls who were looking for revenge on you but you were already dead. He didn't hunt like us. You took him to baseball games and let him joyride in the Impala. Clearly, he was your favorite."

"Dean, shut up." Sam growled. "It wasn't like that!"

"We don't know that. He certainly doesn't."

John looked to Liz, she had her eyes fixed on her hands. "Is he saying that I've got a third kid out there?" She nodded. "You couldn't tell me… before now."

"I didn't know he was dead until the angels were fighting about him." Liz watched his heart break and pulled her knees against her chest. "They only showed me what you saw."

"Will someone please… fill in the blanks?" John stared at them all.

Castiel reached into his jacket and produced a thick manuscript. He handed it to Liz. She stared at it. It was the year and change of her life, typing it and editing it and rewriting it. It was done, she supposed. It ended when he died at the hands of Azazel after making sure that Dean was alive and had promised to kill his brother if he couldn't save him. Tears filled her eyes as she looked to the Angel. "This is the more you were talking about?"

"He needs to know."

"It's cruel."

"I told you the rules when this started." Castiel lowered his voice so that only Liz could hear. Dean was closer than anyone else. "I told you that he wasn't yours."

Her breath shuddered in her chest. She wiped away the tears and looked to John. "It's all here. From beginning to end. It should jog your memory."

He stepped forward and took it from her. He sat on the end of the bed to open it to the first page. It was a story of how he was conceived in the backseat of his father's car, his parents made to get married when they learned of his impending birth. He looked up at the angel. "Is this for real?"

"It was, in fact, your reality. Read." Castiel told him.

Liz quietly got off the bed and took the whiskey bottle to the chair by the window. John read. Sam, Dean and Castiel whispered. Liz drank. She didn't look up until Castiel was handing her a laptop. "You're not done."

Liz took it and opened it. While it was booting, she took a long swallow of alcohol. Setting the laptop on the table, she opened the writing program and squinted at the first few words that popped up. _John woke up in the woods, naked and alone… and brand new._ Liz opened her mouth to speak but Castiel was standing over her, cleaning her reading glasses. "Thanks."

Sam watched the exchange. The resigned way that Liz had just done as told. Watched her put the glasses on her face, put her fingers on the keyboard and type. A steady pace that never let up for a second. He looked to his brother. Dean had an odd sort of expression on his face as he watched her as well. Their father was absorbed in reading about himself.

Dean found food in the fridge and set himself down to eat when something caught his eye. A journal. He looked around and found everyone busy doing something. He opened it. He recognized his father's handwriting. Half-formed thoughts about memories he was having. A few sketches. The first one was of a car. The Impala. The next of Liz. Dean stared at it for a moment. It had been worked on and worked on. Whoever their father was now, he spent a lot of time thinking about the little girl at the laptop. Then the next sketch. Dean would know that face anywhere.

It was a cruel thing to do. Dean held the open journal in front of his father's face. "This is our mom. Your wife."

Liz looked up at that. It was John's journal. John took it and looked at the picture he had dawn. "This is her."

"Yeah. You drew it?"

"I… doodle sometimes."

Dean pulled his father's old journal from his jacket. He pulled the picture out from under the front flap. "You doodle well."

John's breath caught. There she was, with him, at Niagara. "This is Mary. Are there more?"

"Yeah." Sam jumped up to escape the room.

"He's got some in the car." Dean explained briefly, his eyes going to Liz, who returned to her laptop. She seemed to ignore them after that.

John stared at the picture. Emotions burst inside him that he didn't know he had. He was torn between the pictures the boys were giving him and the story of his life in print. This was bigger than he ever imagined. The only reprieve he had was when he realized that the tapping noise was getting faster and faster. He looked up and found Liz typing furiously, her mouth open to let in shuddering breaths of air. Finally, she tossed the laptop and made for the door.

He started to go after her but Castiel pushed the pictures and manuscript back toward him. "You have work to do. We need you… at full capacity."

John looked back toward the door. "Could… one of you… she… she shouldn't be out in case she has another seizure."

Sam started to go but Dean was already out the door. Dean found her sitting on the hood of her car. The tears made him sorry for what he'd done. She looked at him and angrily wiped the tears away. "I'm not going anywhere. I needed a break."

"My dad seems to care a lot about you."

"We take care of each other. Even before I knew who and what he was." She answered softly. "I know he's not mine. He never was. You don't need to throw it in my face."

"He's 59… chronologically speaking."

"And? He's a handsome, kind man. He's a stand up kind of guy and…" Liz took a breath. "You don't know me. You don't know my past. John's been good for me. Good to me. We… we've had our arguments and we always make up."

"Were… you with him before or after you were with me?"

Liz stared up at him as he drew closer. She bit her lip and shrugged. "Both. I didn't know who you were… or else I would have stayed the hell home that night. Believe me… the fallout from that night… haunts me." He started to say something but she laid a hand on his arm. "Please, please, do not tell him that we know each other from before here."

"Why?"

"Please, just… please."

"What are you typing?"

"John since he woke up. It's been quick work. I've seen most of it. I'm getting some of the behind the scenes of things he's never told me." Liz left her hand on his arm. "I… was caught up to the exact present when he was holding those pictures. It was… overwhelming. The emotion and the confusion."

"Why?"

"He thought he was in love with me."

"Thought?"

"He doesn't think that anymore." Liz gripped his arm and couldn't let go. Her breath came out in shudders until they were sobs.

Dean almost panicked but held her when she fell forward and into his arms. He'd been cruel but it seemed that maybe his father had been crueler. Dean had done what he did. Feeling like a romp, he'd seen her in the bar. She'd been willing. Scared the crap out of him when he'd made her scream and then she'd started convulsing on top of him. Thought she was dead for a minute. Got her to the ER.

He'd been willing to take the verbal beating from her friend. He'd thought he had killed her. Maybe she'd hit her head or something. He'd been relieved when he'd heard the click of the pen against the glass. She'd looked tired but she was smiling at him and thanking him for the ride of her life. She'd let him off with a smile, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. That was the image that his father had drawn in his journal. It had incited so many conflicting thoughts and feelings. He hadn't known her off the bat. He'd recognized her but she was sober and put together and letting an old guy hang all over her.

They had no attachment but… she was pretty and young and fucking his father. She knew intimate details about his father that he had probably never known. It seemed like that knowledge had come with a price. Dean stroked her hair and held her tight. His shirt was warm with tears. When she calmed, Dean used a clean patch of shirt to dry her face. She stared up at him. "He raised you well."

"I like to think so."

"He did. He's so proud. Always was." She bit her lip. "Even about Fitchburg." She saw his flinch. "You were a boy and he should have never left you and your brother anywhere close. He wasn't mad at you. He was mad at himself. He saw what he had done to you but didn't know how to fix it… so, when it turned up, he sent you." She looked up at him. Pain in his green eyes. "He knew you'd get it. You'd figure out what he hadn't."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Your dad's not perfect." Liz met his eyes for a second then dropped her gaze. "He loves you. He tried to do right by you but his means… I only know what it was like for him. I don't know what it was like for you. But I'm a woman, looking at his memories and seeing what he sees. I know what he felt but I know what I saw." She met his eyes again. "He's your hero… he never felt like it."


	13. Part 12

Part 12

Kansas, Spring 2011

Liz looked at the pictures when everyone else was asleep. Mary was beautiful. She looked at the picture that John had drawn. He'd spent some time on it but it was incomplete. She looked at the picture he'd drawn of her. It warmed her heart but she had to let go. She pulled the laptop out and started typing more. She was just about caught up on the present and was moving on to the future. She was really glad there were no more seizures but if she had guessed correctly, the angels were watching her to see what was going to happen next.

When Dean got up, he made coffee and brought her a cup. A peace offering. She took it with a wan smile and pushed her readers back up her nose. He cleared his throat about halfway through his cup of coffee. She smiled at him. "John doesn't eat breakfast here. Just dinner. You'll have to run out and get food."

"Who are you?" Dean shrugged and settled himself in to watch her. She kept typing and stared back at him.

"Just a small town girl from a small town."

"You've had enough of a life that this isn't driving you crazy."

Liz thought about it for a long moment as she let her fingers type on and on. "It's not important, Dean."

"Maybe it is."

"Okay." Liz finished what she could. It was still kind of fuzzy. She set the laptop down and curled up in the chair with her coffee. "I'm from Roswell, New Mexico. I had a complicated relationship with a boy who saved my life and continually broke my heart. He uh… well, he was the man I married, I saved myself for him but he didn't for me. We eloped, ran around the country doing good deeds and avoiding the law." She saw his eyebrow shoot up. "That's a quote from a book I barely remember. He left me to find his son. Left me thoroughly behind and to pick up the pieces of a life that wasn't recognizable as mine. I ran from it.

"Then I was tapped by demons and angels. I repelled evil and good forced its way in. I came here. I met John." She tilted her head at him as he absorbed that. "I've slept with a total of three men in my life." She left it unspoken that 2/3 of them were in the room. "I was pretty content to take care of him and write his life… and hero-worship him while he wasn't looking. I've tried to put a boundary, Dean. I did. I ran from him to keep us apart but I was sent back here to take care of him until you guys could come for him. He wanted things from me that I knew I shouldn't give and I wanted things from him that I knew he can't give."

"Like what?" His question was asked in earnest. He just wanted to know.

"I want a life. A normal one. It's all I ever wanted. My dreams used to be of molecular biology and Harvard." She grinned into her cup. "After my ex… I just wanted normal. I waitress and I dream. I want a family to call my own again. I want to be safe."

"The angels don't let you say no." Dean pointed out.

"I know. There are some things that they can compel me to do and other things they have to ask and I have to give permission." She nodded to that. "What do you want, Dean?"

"My family to be together and to be safe."

"I was just taking care of him for you, Dean. I knew I didn't get to keep him."

"Maybe. I'm protective of my family."

"I know. It suits you." She looked up when John joined them. He stole her cup for a sip. He grunted in appreciation and used that bit to get him all the way to the coffee maker. She smiled after him a second. Then she slid her eyes over to Dean. "This isn't going to end well."

"I know it. It never does."

"Dean…" Liz bit her lip. "I only get to see from John's end of things. The vision I got of Adam… wasn't from John's end and I'm not sure exactly who witnessed it." She sighed. "What was in the hole with him?"

"Michael was inside him… but Lucifer was in there, too." Dean swallowed down the lump in his throat. "Sam was there for a while."

"Lucifer was inside him." Liz nodded. John had suspected that was what the demon Azazel had purposed Sam for. "Adam was alone with the both of them." Dean nodded. "How did Sam get out?"

"I made a deal." Dean's mouth hung open for a while and his eyes went wet. "Adam… I never met the real Adam. I met the Adam that a ghoul was using as a skin suit. I met the Adam who was possessed by Michael. The kid didn't know. He's caught up in this and he was in the cage with…"

Liz laid a hand on his arm. "You did what you had to do."

"I couldn't save them both and I'm not sure I made the right decision."

"I know enough about John to know that he taught to do what you could."

"I'm not as strong as he is." Dean cleared his throat. "I started this mess. I made a deal. I went to Hell. I spilled blood in Hell. Dad didn't do that. I did. The seal broke. This all started. It was me."

"Everything okay in here?" John cleared his throat into his coffee cup.

Liz looked up, removed her hand from Dean's arm, which Dean used to scrub at his face. "We're just getting to know one another."

"Yeah." Dean cleared his throat. "But just so's we're clear. I'm not calling her Mom."

Both Liz and Dean looked at each other and shuddered. They knew what John did not. John shook his head at them. He shook his head all the way back to the bed where he'd left the manuscript. Liz picked up John's pictures. The picture of John from when he was her age just took her breath away. "Good looks run in the family."

"I guess." Dean shrugged, smug grin.

"You look like her." Liz mused. "Adam looks like his mom… and Sam… doesn't look like anyone… not really." She looked at the pictures and listened for visions. "John has a type."

"Yeah." Dean nodded. They left unspoken that Liz was not, in fact, that type. "Sam mentioned once that Adam and I looked more like brothers than Sam and I did."

"He's right." She stared at Dean. "Can you save Adam?"

"I don't know." Dean took a breath. "I've been mulling things over. There are… mystical things that are… recurrent. My mom was a hunter. My dad became a hunter. Dad had three kids. The heavens have been jacking with my family from the get-go…"

"Your mom was a hunter?" Liz grinned and watched his face. "Seriously. I never saw that. John never knew?"

"No." Dean shook his head.

Liz's breath caught and her head started pounding. When she fell out of her chair, Dean caught her and held her until it passed. When he looked up, John was standing over them both. The look in his eyes was familiar. Dean stared up at his dad. "She's caught up in the middle of this, but she's got no place in the fight."

"Well, you certainly sound like my dad when you talk like that." Dean looked down at the sleeping woman. "She was up all night typing. We were talking and she just… went down."

"It happens sometimes. The seizures are the worst." John bent down and picked her up in his arms. He put her in his bed and covered her up. "I didn't know why she had them. Said she never had them before coming to this town."

"How do you… hook up with a girl that much younger than yourself… and not feel dirty?" Dean asked him.

"We have candid conversations like this?" John huffed but turned to face him. "I guess maybe we did." He shrugged. "You don't is the answer. I always feel like a dirty old man when I'm with her."

"So, who put the moves on?"

"She did. We were drunk. I put on a show. Muscle memory is what it's called. I looked it up. Some guy attacked us. Wanted money and Liz. I dealt with him without realizing that I knew how." John paced around the room. Dean sat on the foot of the bed to watch him. "She was terrified. I was mystified. We were still drunk. Things happened."

"I guess I see that."

"She's special. You don't meet women like Liz… ever, forget often." John felt like he knew that somewhere.

"She's not nine kinds of fucked up?"

"Try twelve." John snorted. "I could tell you stories but you'd probably have to bleach your brain. If my dad told me any stories about my mom like I know about her." He pointed and shuddered. "I don't feel 60, Dean. I don't. I don't feel like I have kids most of the time."

"Tell me about her." Dean asked. Sammy was still asleep, or at least faking it. Good, the kid never slept.

"I was… broken when I washed up here. Woke up without memory, knew that I had to avoid the cops at all costs. I tried to settle places but I'd get drunk, piss someone off and have to be on my way again." John took a seat and scanned another page about himself. "Then I stumbled into this diner and knew I didn't have enough money for a biscuit, forget coffee. I just needed to be warm for as long as they'd let me sit. She gave me coffee, on the house… then a slice of day old pie that was headed for the trash. Let me stay until closing. Then convinced the owner to let me crash on the couch, and have a shower in the kitchen with the hose.

"I… was grateful enough for that. I tried to earn my keep. The owner is pushing 80. I did some heavy lifting. She bought me lunch and gave me some advice and admitted that she could probably follow it herself." He laughed to himself. "She told me that she would not be taking me home because I could be a serial killer for all she knew. Still, she took me out during the day. Got me clothes, a job, a place to stay… fed me a couple times a week at home."

"Wow. I've seen you dirty and unwashed. It's not pretty." Dean laughed and glanced behind him at the still girl. "She must be something."

"She uh… She and I have a complicated relationship. A lot of fighting about… stuff that I never thought should be fought about… until now. She's got a will of iron." John frowned to himself. "She took off on me, said it wasn't about me. Comes back and just… started taking care of me again. I needed it. I was remembering and I was worried about her… she was gone something like… two months… maybe three. I lost track of time." He stared at his hands, stopped pacing and looked to the girl. "She came back to me and let me… have her. Not all of her but enough. She told me that she met someone. She had that look in her eyes. The one. Still, she came back."

"Met someone?" Dean frowned.

"She has real bad seizures and she had one while she was gone. They doped her to the gills and she didn't know she was pregnant. She figured the meds… she lost the baby before she even knew it was there but…" John set his jaw. "I think she wanted it. She moved on, though. She… picked herself up and moved on. I watch her sometimes and I know she's thinking about it."

"She was pregnant?"

"She's amazing, Dean. I can't find the words to describe her really. I mean, she's not perfect or anything. Far from it but she is amazing."

Dean mulled that over. "You said she came home pregnant."

"Yeah." John nodded to his face. "She had that same expression when she found out. She woke up in the hospital and just figured it was another seizure. I knew it wasn't mine from what the doctors said."

"Ain't that a kick in the pants." Dean whispered to himself. The cryptic words and phrases were starting to make sense. "Wow. You found yourself a winner, Dad."

Sam read through the pages that his dad was done with. Seeing the world through his father's eyes was… enlightening. The fears were there all along. He just got good at being an ass to cover for them. He stole some pages ahead of John to read about his relationship with Adam. Conflict and anguish over that. The description of Adam's mother was… confusing, given the general description could have been that of Mary Winchester herself. The timing… Sam remembered that Christmas. It was the Christmas that he had learned the truth about what their father did. The beginning of his relationship with Adam had begun after Sam had left the family to pursue his education. John had been trying to fill a hole but only a few days out of a year. He was never a real father to the boy.

He watched his father take care of Liz between reading and learning. He fixed a cup of coffee and then a slice of pie with Tabasco sauce on it. He watched on as John made a face and handed it to her. She laughed and kissed his cheek. An inside joke, perhaps. She stared at John when he wasn't looking. She'd get a faraway look in her eyes and turn to face a wall to catch her breath. He didn't know what was going on there but he had an inkling that Dean knew.

Dean returned from wherever with food, a bag of Liz's clothes and her printer. John made a run for paper and ink as requested. He watched Dean and Liz whisper. Something had happened between them while Sam slept. Dean took the laptop and set it up to print while Liz ate and got some coffee in her. Then Castiel appeared. The words he shared with Liz weren't heard but Sam could see the expression on her face. She was in Hell. Agony was the perfect expression for it.

John walked in about then and the sight of her face made him try to hit the Angel. Dean got in between them. Liz took the pages when Dean handed them over. She gave them a long hard look before giving them to Castiel. "You guys have to go pick up a hunter."

"Where?" Dean asked.

"Lawrence." Her voice broke but she held it together a moment longer. "She's just like John. She doesn't remember."

Dean spun on Liz. She nodded at him. He nodded back. "Let's load up."

"I'm not going anywhere." John protested, he didn't know what he was missing but he was tired of all the looks.

"You have to." Liz cleared her throat. "It's essential that you pick her up. John, it has to be you."

Liz looked around the apartment. It was crowded and it was about to be even more so. As she typed, she looked around. The words just came. She'd perfected her gift. The voice was clear, the words were accurate. She had seen what would come. She should have known from the beginning. There was a reason that Castiel had told her not to get attached to John. She was a prophet and a war was coming. Soldiers were being called. The best were being brought in. When she was done, she gave the pages to Castiel. Then she packed up all her things and returned to her apartment. She could not be there when they returned… and they would. Lawrence wasn't far at all.

The hunter was chronologically in her fifties but was physically in her early 30s, just older than Dean. She had been dead for 27 years, which was just the number of years she'd been alive without being a mother. She had been out of the game for slightly longer than that. Still, she had been called. Her history was not Liz's to write. She imagined there was another prophet, somewhere else that was in charge of that story.

She knew about Chuck. Dean's prophet. She'd looked his books up. They were enlightening. There was more story to be told but Chuck was missing. She couldn't get the name of Mary's prophet. She was alive and confused and waiting.


	14. Part 13

Part 13

Kansas, Spring 2011

Liz had just handed Castiel another stack of pages when her door opened. Dean. He stared at her. He nodded to her. She sat on her bed. They comforted each other until the tears didn't fall anymore. Then Liz had kissed him. He had kissed her back. Clothes shed, Liz writhed on top of him. He felt so good. His hands, his mouth. He made her come twice before he rolled them over and thrust into her until he was empty. He laid on top of her for a long time, rolling strands of her hair around his fingers, running his nose along the line of her neck. Her hands clutched at his shoulders. The after that they had been cheated of the last time. Dean talked a little. Random bits of information.

They were asleep when John burst into the apartment. John stood at the foot of the bed for a long moment, face turning red. Liz took a breath before nudging Dean off the bed. John tossed her robe at her and waited while Dean put his clothes back on. It was a long time before John found his tongue. "What the hell is this?"

"You have her back, John. What was I supposed to do?" Liz asked softly. "Hang around and watch you remember her?"

"I don't remember her."

"You will. There's no place for me." Liz pulled her robe tight against her body.

"So, you fuck my son."

"Don't do that, John. He's not a consolation prize." She stood and crossed her arms. "This is me, telling you, that you and I are done. It's just the way it has to be."

"Dad." Dean tried to say something but there was nothing to say. Liz had been right before about not telling him the truth. "Let her go."

Liz took a breath and looked at Dean. He understood. That was more than she could hope to ask for. She watched the confusion on John's face. He was so torn. "What the hell is going on, Liz? Just clue me in."

"It's the end of the world, John. We all have our part to play." Her voice wavered but her eyes didn't. "Save it. Not for yourself. Not for me or your boys. Save it for everyone else."

"It's our job, Dad. It's what we do." Dean tried to cut in, deflect some of his anger.

"I don't know you from Adam." John got in Dean's face. "I don't know anything about saving people except what I read in what could be made up history. All I really do know… is that my alleged son just fucked my girlfriend."

"It's not the first time, John." Liz whispered, slipping her hand around Dean's bicep to pull him back. To ally herself with him. "Probably won't be the last." She met Dean's eyes first, then looked to John. "I told you… you can't give me what I want. Maybe Dean can't either… you have a job to do. It's the only reason you're back." She was holding on to Dean's arm to keep herself on her feet because John's eyes had steel in them. "Mary's your wife. The love of your life. Don't blame her for what I'm doing to you."

John stormed out and Dean caught Liz to keep her from falling. Dean set her back on the bed. "Tell me that was necessary."

"Isn't that what you wanted?" Liz sniffed.

"Not like that."

"Couldn't have happened any other way. You know him, probably better than I do."

"She's not my mom." Dean's chin quivered. "She looks like her. Just like she did when I was four. She doesn't remember me."

"It's coming, Dean. They're going to remember and it's not going to be pretty. I need you to keep them together."

"Or what?"

"You will. I know you will."

"He told me." Dean admitted to her. "You know… about what happened after I left you in Georgia."

"I know."

"What do you think they want with our baby?"

"I don't know, yet." Liz stared up at him. "Think we could have done this the normal way?"

He grinned at her. Bright as day. It didn't reach his eyes. "Hell, no."

"I'm glad that you're such a good sport."

The smile fading to a truer version of what he felt. "Dad raised me to be a good soldier."

Castiel was waiting when Liz got out of the shower. She dressed for comfort. They stared at each other for a long time. "What now?"

"You wait until they're done."

"He hates me."

"He won't for long."

"Why did I have to take care of him?" Liz demanded. "Any of them?"

"You are something special, Liz." Castiel paced the apartment. She set the coffee to burn on the stove. He kept talking while she got herself ready for another day of typing and waitressing. "Elizabeth is an old name. It means "word of God." Somehow it was fitting that such a special person have such a name. John, Mary, Samuel. All biblical."

"And Dean?"

"In times past, Dean was not a name but a title. An authority figure. A head of a church or college…" Castiel shrugged. "English is one of the weirder languages." He looked out the window. Rain had begun to fall. The Winchesters were on the road out of town already. "Something about you keeps the demons away. They try but they can't get in. As long as John was near you, they couldn't touch him. They tried. He never even felt it."

"Seizures."

"Perhaps. Or like you said, my brothers fighting over what you should write next."

"You couldn't stop them?"

"I'm a little brother. My big brothers could smite me for breakfast."

"Who is inside him?" Liz poured herself coffee. "Adam… who has the body?"

"I don't know."

John sat in the backseat. It felt wrong. Like he should be driving. He kept stealing glances at her. Mary Campbell Winchester. She was doing the same. Their boys sat up front. Sam was on the phone. Dean was explaining some things. As he did so, things started appearing John's mind. A glanced at Mary and he knew she was seeing the same things.

Waking up in bed together and just staring. Sighing heavily when Dean cried from his crib. The joy at welcoming Sammy into their lives. A normal life.

Mary looked at him. "I was… lost."

"Me, too." John held his hand out. "I'm John."

"Mary." She smiled. "You do what I used to. I see that in you. It wasn't there before."

The memories came pouring back when she put her hand in his. They laughed as the memories settled. They had spent time in this backseat before. She fell into his arms and kissed his lips. They laughed softly. John held her close. Liz fading away in his mind. This was his Mary. He'd fucked her senseless a time or two on this very bench seat. Dean had been conceived in this car. Maybe Sammy, too.

When they finally settled, it was dark and they were hundreds of miles from Stull, Kansas. Mary looked to the front seat. Her boys were grown. They were hunters. Her civilian husband was a hunter. They were all far better at the job than her own family had been. The car was silent.

Dean had watched the backseat off and on while the emotional rollcoaster had its highs and lows. They were staring at each other. Not sure what to do with one another. "So, Mom… tell us about your family. We never knew about them."

Mary's smile was sad. She looked to her husband and for the first time in life, told the truth. "My family comes from a long line of hunters. We trace back to England. One of my ancestors killed Jack the Ripper. Dad said we were directly descended from that guy… or girl. Story goes a few different ways…"


	15. Part 14

Part 14

Kansas, Fall 2011

Liz wiped down the tables and the counter. She smiled at her regulars and the locals. The weary travelers got some warm coffee and a little chatter. Miss Carter had passed on. Mr. Carter hardly came out of the kitchen anymore. Liz got a raise and that was just in time. She knew what people thought but let them. It was her life… mostly. She hadn't seen an angel in a long time. She kept track of John through her visions. She watched him fight the darkness. She watched him repeat his mistakes. Explain to his wife what had gone on in her absence.

The hustle and bustle of Stull was nothing compared to the action of the Winchesters. Liz typed everything she saw. She printed the manuscripts and they disappeared. She moved on. She called Kyle more often. She sent Maria music on disc so that she didn't have to read the music. She dropped her parents a line but kept distance from everyone.

She smiled into her mug sometimes and no one knew why. She was just watching the down moments of her favorite hunters. The good times between the battles. Sometimes she got a bit of Adam. He was on the move and he was causing trouble. She knew they would find a way to put him at peace. Lucifer and Michael trapped inside of one body. It was what they were meant to do.

John wanted to call her but didn't dare. It wouldn't look good to Mary if she ever found out about his time with the prophet. He'd never ask Dean to and Dean didn't really want to know what the future held in store. There was enough going on in the present. John was turned around enough as it was. No need to make it any worse.

John and Sam fought something awful, all the time. Mary was at her wits ends trying to break them up. Dean let her do it. It was her turn. He focused on doing the research and making the sacrifices to get the job done. Liz closed her eyes and had to turn her mind away when John and Mary were alone. The love was… great. The sex, well, she knew how sex with John was.

The problem with being a prophet was that while the past, present and future were an open book… it was focused on just a few key people and objects. It didn't let her in on her own future… not as such. She couldn't predict lottery numbers or if it would rain but she could send a postcard to Bobby Singer to get them back on the right track. Bobby had shown up, once. She pretended not to know who he was. He left with no confirmation of anything. It was better that way.

So, it was a rainy day when Liz sat in her new apartment and stared out the back window. Cup of tea in hand and cursor blinking on the laptop nearby, just in case. There was a battle going on and she knew how it would end. She'd written it last week. Poor kid. Adam was set for a great reward. Dean was bruised and bloody, Sam was nursing some broken bones. Mary and John were in the trenches. They were teaching each other and teaching their boys. The day had come.

A knock on the door pulled Liz away from her thoughts. She opened the door and immediately slammed it shut. He begged and pleaded but Liz couldn't do it again. As she held the door shut, she felt it spring to life. Energy poured out of her hands and into the door. Melting it shut. He was crying and sobbing. "Liz! Open the door!"

"No." Liz shook her head. Her love for him was faded and she'd had help to bury it. "You made your bed, Max. Lie in it."

"He's gone. They're all gone. What do I do?"

"I don't know but you can't be here." Liz whispered to the door. The pain was fresh as it ever was. "You left us and we're just learning to get along. You can't…"

"Open the door, so I can see you."

Then she felt them. Four of them, Angels prepared to protect her with any means necessary. She panicked. "Shut your eyes, Max."

She hoped he did as told. The angels whisked him away instead of killing him. It was the best she could hope for. She undid the damage to her door and tried to relax. Castiel appeared. He looked sad but it was not what she feared. "He's got no place here."

"Then why is he back?"

"If you find my father, ask him." Castiel shrugged. "I still don't know what he is."

"What's the report?"

"There are casualties. It was expected." He tilted his head at her. She knew this.

"Who?" She couldn't see anymore. They were gone.

"You know who."

"But it's not over."

"As long as we keep the end of the world at bay, it won't ever be over. Prepare yourself."

The night was still and dark, just like every night since the night Max had tried to come back. She didn't have visions anymore, not since that night. They had all come to pass. She was trying to throw the bag into the dumpster but it was heavy and she couldn't really lift it or get the momentum going to toss it over the top. Then it was taken out of her hand and tossed in with ease. Dean. He sank to his knees in front of her, pressed his face to her belly and cried. She held his head against her and let her shirt grow damp with his tears. She hadn't heard the Impala. She wondered where Sam was holed up, if he was okay.

She eventually got Dean on his feet and into her apartment. Whiskey in hand and the words tumbled out of his mouth. "I'm sure you already know this but… they're dead again. This time I think they're both in heaven and they're together." He took a breath, it shuddered in and out. "Adam, too."

She nodded that she knew. She wanted to ask him but didn't dare. Dean tossed back the whiskey, poured another and tossed it back. He stared at her. "He never mentioned you after we left but sometimes… it was like it was on the tip of his tongue. He wanted me to come back and make sure you were okay."

"And you looked back at him like you wanted to punch him in the face."

Dean grinned at that. "You saw that?"

"I saw everything he saw."

"And some he didn't because you're a woman?"

She gave him a soft smile. He remembered what she had said all those months ago. "Yeah, something like that."

"He got to save her this time. She saved us again. This God, dude, better handle his kids better in the future." Dean laughed humorlessly. "I mean… really, really, unruly kids he'd got.

"You see Chuck?"

"You didn't?"

She shook her head. "Chuck is out of my line of sight. I only know about him because he wants me to."

"When did…" He glanced down and then up again. "Right."

"Are they in the cage?" Liz asked softly.

"For now." Dean wiped at his eyes. "The more I see, the more I wish I didn't. They're brothers. They hate each other so much. If I ever hate my brother that way, I want to die before I can do much of it." He sniffed and breathed before pouring another drink. "Why do you keep this stuff? You can't drink it."

"I figured you'd be back." She shrugged. "I didn't see it. I'm not your prophet."

Dean breathed for a long moment. He needed to get it out. "Sammy didn't see this; he was unconscious. Mom and Dad were already gone. The hole was closed up but… Adam was still alive… Just barely."

Liz swallowed down a lump at the wet in his eyes. "Dean."

"I need to tell somebody." Dean swallowed more whiskey. "All this time, I kept saying that he wasn't my brother… just because his mom wasn't mine and dad didn't ever drag him into this life. I saw him. Really saw him. He pleaded with me to kill him. He was… half-crazy. I couldn't. He was my baby brother. I held him. He was broken and I held him until he stopped breathing. He thanked me. Said… said he was glad that he had a big brother to watch over him. He was just a kid."

"You got the job done."

"Yeah. It's what I do." Dean reached forward and laid his hand on her belly. "Think it can be normal?"

"Not a chance." She shook her head. "I don't see the future since your dad died. I don't know why it was so important that we make him."

"Him?" Dean felt the kick and smiled in spite of himself. "They have a division for this."

"Who does?"

"Heaven. Cupid and his buddies. They… make these things happen. Took us a couple of tries." He took a breath. "They try any which way they can if it's important enough."

"You could have refused. I could've."

"No, they get what they want. We're just a bunch of puppets." Dean shook his head. He stared at her. "I'm not my dad."

"I know." She looked down to her belly. "I can't raise him by myself. I don't know how to teach him the things he needs to know."

"A boy huh. A Winchester boy." Dean laughed to himself. "Well, little buddy, get ready for a world of hurt. We'll try to take it easy on you."

"Dean… it means 'law.'" Liz blurted out. She smiled. He only arched an eyebrow at her, not understanding but he would. "Castiel and I talk sometimes about you and Sam. This kid, though… he needs a name that means something."

"Mind if I name him after someone?" He saw the look on her face and had to explain. "Not after Dad… There was a kid I loved… I thought I was his dad once upon a time. He wasn't but I tried to be one to him but I fucked it up. Benjamin."

"I like that." Liz nodded. "Tell me about him."

"He's a great kid. Loves his mom. Doesn't care that his dad is a douche… or that I am." Dean sniffed and drew on his memories both bitter and sweet of Lisa Braedan and her son. "I uh… put their lives in danger. I asked a favor from an angel. They don't remember me… or what I put them through."

"You're gonna be a good dad, Dean. Like yours was."

"Maybe. All this carnage." Dean breathed and tried to smile but it seemed too far away just now. So much had happened. So many people dead. "I don't want it to touch him but he has to know how to protect himself. Dad did what he had to. Mom did what she had to… I'll do what I have to."

Liz watched his face as he talked about ways he would keep his son safe. Keep her safe. He talked and talked and talked. They went to bed, talking. Making up for not having met in a capacity to know each other before. They woke and talked some more. They talked until they ran out of things to talk about. Then they made love and lay in bed to listen to each other's heartbeats and to feel their child kick. There were a dozen ways they could have met but the plan had made severe rights and lefts. Then Sam found them. Liz watched Dean's face, so full of pride as he explained the situation. Sam was so confused. Dean shook his head that he'd explain better it later.


	16. Epilogue

Epilogue

It was awkward. They were going to fight… a lot. They were going to bring this child into a world full of pain and love. Liz didn't have a road map this time. She'd have to wing it. She wondered if someone had been tapped to be Benjamin Winchester's prophet or if that was a task for when he was older. She thought she'd write it anyway. Just in case. No angels commanded her to do so. Just a record of her son.

_Benjamin Winchester was conceived in love by Elizabeth Anne Parker and Dean Winchester. It wasn't love for each other as much as love for someone else they both cherished. There was no shotgun wedding. There were no children that followed. There was just Benjamin Winchester, the beloved son of a demon hunter and a prophet. He had angels watching over him from the moment of conception. They would continue to watch and wait until his purpose was known. The angels had ensured his arrival because of a number of things. Benjamin Winchester had the distinction of being a human who could not be possessed by a demon, though it wouldn't stop them from trying, and who could only be compelled so far by any Angel, though it wouldn't stop them from trying. He was trained from birth to hunt the things that gave nightmares strength._

_ Benjamin Winchester came from a long line of hunters. Descended from hunters who killed Jack the Ripper, Azazel, Lilith and who trapped the Archangel Michael and Lucifer in a cage in hell. Whatever Benjamin Winchester became, it would be LEGEND._

The End.


End file.
